Just a Human
by GroovyKat
Summary: Trapped in Pete's World, Rose Tyler and her Son have been running since the day of his birth. Sick of running and getting nowhere, Gallifrey Tyler finds a way to get them free and hopefully reunite his parents. His Time Travelling accuracy is as good as his father's, and he unfortunately manages to land them in 1913, where The Doctor is a Human and is in love with a Human girl.
1. Trouble

A/N: This isn't going to be a typical rewrite of human nature with a bunch of dialogue ripped from the episode and everything running as the episode did. Quite frankly, while I thoroughly love the idea, I wasn't entirely thrilled with the episode itself. So I'm stealing the main concept and putting my own spin on things. If you recognize anything, then it's purely coincidental. I've literally only ever seen that episode ... once ... just once ...

And if you all groan and roll your eyes at the young lad's name. Sorry. I love it.

Disclaimer: Oh, and I don't own Doctor Who ... none of it. Wish I did, but I don't...

 _~~oooOOOooo~~_

 _"The time evolution of the state is given by a differentiable function from the real numbers R_ ," he muttered quietly to himself as he scrawled hasty notes in his notepad. " _R, representing instants of time, to the Hilbert Space of system states. The map is categorized by a differential equation as follows_." With a pink tip of his tongue seated in the very right corner of his mouth, he hastily scribbled a series of mathematical symbols inside a set of brackets, and then continued to narrate to himself the text he scratched into the A4-sized notebook in his hands. " _…denotes the state of the system at any one time_ t, _the following Shrödinger equation holds…"_

He let out a happy giggle as he bounced in his seat and let his feet swing front and back underneath his chair. The equation was one of the first that he'd taught himself – at the age of three – as he browsed university course catalogues and online. He'd practiced it and perfected it, and could break it down to anyone who cared to listen to him do so…

…Which, sadly, was no one at this house of learning.

…If it could be so called, anyway.

He considered it a moment as he autonomously completed the equation without looking too closely at it. Was he truly in a house of learning, or had his mother enrolled him in a facility where learning was nothing more than a cultish data download of useless information he would likely never use again outside the classroom?

The small expression of his lips lazily pressed together and curled into a snarl of annoyance quickly fell into an expression of buoyancy as he looked back down at his equation and finished the work in his mind.

" _Where_ H _is a densely defined self-adjoint operator, called the system Hamiltonian,_ I _is the imaginary unit and…_ "

"Gal!"

His little head popped up immediately at the worried tone of his mother's voice. It took a second for his wide-eyed look of surprise to fall into a happy grin, and then even less time than that to fall into an expression of absolute apology. He cast his papers off to one side and slipped off the chair. "Mum," he cried out as he skittered quickly along the corridor to collide hard against her belly. "Mum. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Rose Tyler let out a sudden exhale as her young son crushed himself into her belly and quickly dropped into a crouch to look up at her distraught child. "Sweetheart? What's wrong, are you okay?"

He bit at his lip and nodded quickly as he gave his eyes a clumsy wipe with the back of his hand. He hummed his assent and swallowed hard. "I'm in trouble, mum," he admitted finally. "I'm so sorry. I know you told me to keep my curiosity in check here at school, but I couldn't help it. I just _had_ to know."

Rose frowned at the apologetic sorrow in his voice, and pulled him toward her to clutch a comforting hug with her child. "Whatever you did, Gal, it can't be that bad, yeah?"

He sniffed and clutched his arms around her neck to bury his face into her shoulder. "Dunno, Mum. I just know that there's lots of really official looking people here and I'm scared."

Rose pulled back from the full embrace, but kept her arms around his lithe little hips. "Another experiment gone wrong, sweetheart?"

"Kind've," he admitted in a tiny voice.

That tiny little voice and the quiet way in which her only child answered her caused Rose Tyler's heart to thump worriedly against her chest. "What _kind_ of experiment, Gal?"

"Uhm…"

He was saved from answering by the appearance of the Head Master. He looked down to Rose Tyler, crouched on the floor wearing the telltale pink serving uniform dress and apron of the local lunch house. "Miss Tyler, I'm glad you could make it here on such short notice."

Rose drew herself to a stand quickly enough that she succumbed to a sudden rush of dizziness and had the clamp her hand on her son's shoulder to maintain her balance. "I'll probably lose my job for how fast I ran out of there," she answered shortly. "But, yes, when I'm told that my child has been involved in an _incident_ I will get here as fast as I can." She cleared her throat and took her child's hand in hers. "Mr. Keene. Please tell me what my son has been involved in. From the call I received from your secretary, I believed he was hurt."

Mr. Keene pushed the door to his office open and stood off to one side to allow them in ahead of him. "Be thankful that young Gallifrey wasn't injured. Had he been allowed to continue, it could've been disastrous."

Rose winced at the warning tone inside the principal's voice. "Oh Gal," she murmured to her child, who was plastered tightly against her hip. "What've you done this time?"

"I'm sorry, Mum. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," she whispered in gentle assurance that was quickly swallowed when she took in the party gathered in the room before her. "Oh Gods no."

Mr. Keene indicated a pair of seats that were set front and centre of a semi-circle of chairs full of men and women who were obviously not members of the school faculty. He stood before them and watched as Rose took a seat and Gallifrey slid his chair closer to his mother before taking a seat himself. He practically hid behind her arm as he cowered helplessly at her side.

"Miss Tyler." He held his arm behind him to indicate the six other people seated ahead of them. "Allow me to introduce you to …"

"The police," Rose interrupted with a gasp as her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh Gal, what have you done…"

"Mum, I'm sorry…"

"It's okay," she breathed gently. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it tightly. "We'll get through this. Together, yeah?"

"Yep," he answered with a pop in his p and a glint in his eye.

Rose looked back to the gathering. "You'll have to forgive my shock. When I was told there was an incident with my son, I didn't expect members of the local constabulary and suited operatives of UNIT to be waiting for me."

A woman in a black suit – a dark-skinned lady with a tightly pulled back bun in her hair and shattering red lips that accented her blood-red camisole under her black blazer – sucked on her teeth and curled a perfectly manicured eyebrow at her. "Are you _familiar_ with UNIT, Miss Tyler?"

"By reputation," she answered cautiously. She hooked her finger into a lock of hair that had fallen onto her cheek and shifted it behind her ear. Her other hand pulled from her son's and she began to trace lazy but deliberate circles against his palm. "Men in Black and all that."

"Indeed," the woman answered doubtfully. She rolled her head upward and let incredibly long lashes kiss at her cheek when she gave a slow blink of her eyes. "Your son, _Gallifrey_ , isn't it?"

"Yes," Rose answered with a light narrowing of her eyes. "It's his name."

"And where did you come up with such a name?"

Rose feigned a look of absolute surprised that someone should ask such a strange question. "Does it matter?" She answered slowly. "I'm fairly certain that his name isn't the reason you're here."

"Oh," the unnamed woman said with a single exhaled laugh. "Let's just say that the unusual nature of his moniker has intrigued me. Gallifrey is a _place_ is it not?"

"And so is Montana, Boston, Sydney, Bronx, and every other place that have had children named after them," she snapped in response. "Tell me, do you question the mothers of those kids about why they named them the way they did?"

The woman leaned forward to cradle her chin onto her steepled fingers. Her body language screamed out condescension. "If those children exhibited behaviours that warranted the investigation of UNIT, then quite likely I would."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Because that's getting' to the crux of the problem, isn't it? The name you give your kid determines his or her entire future."

"There's really no need to be facetious."

The circular motion of Rose's finger on her son's palm slowed and became much more deliberate. "It's where his father was born – where all of his family were raised," she suggested finally. "Somewhere in Ireland I believe."

"And speaking of his father…"

"He's none of your concern,' Rose snapped in interruption as she handed her son her cell-phone, which he took eagerly and began to play with it. "The only part of my son's life that man has had a role in was his conception – so let's keep 'im out of this, shall we?"

"He meant enough to you for you to name your son after him."

"What can I say," she uttered with a shrug. "I heard the name, I liked it. Now can we please get back to why you've called me from work to discuss my child?"

The woman licked at her lip with obvious annoyance and leaned back in her chair. She passed a look toward who Rose assumed was her partner, and folded her arms across her chest. "Tag in, Somerville."

 _Somerville_ , Rose thought to herself as the man leaned forward on a burly frame and pressed his elbows into his knees. She noted the pearlized white scarring on his pasty white-skinned left side of his face that could probably be attributed to a flash burn of some form, and swallowed sympathetically. "I won't answer questions about Gallifrey's father – no matter who asks," she clarified as she continued to draw circles on her son's palm. "So don't _tag in_ or play _good cop bad cop_ , because it won't work."

"Then perhaps," Somerville began on a dark, yet friendly tone, "perhaps you can explain to me just how and why your son has such intimate knowledge of nuclear fission.."

"Actually," Gallifrey interrupted meekly. "I was researching radioactive decay in order to experiment with the elemental limits to create a…"

"He used the school's computers to try to order a small amount of Plutonium-238," Mr. Keene interrupted quickly. "A purchase of that nature on the school account obviously alerted several policing organizations."

Rose had to hide her amusement as she looked down at her son, who looked up at her with large chocolate eyes full of apology. "And you thought to corner my son with six members of local law enforcement and the alien hunter organizations?"

"National security," Somerville corrected quickly. "Because there's no … such … thing … as aliens, are there, Miss Tyler?"

Her brow curled high. "No," she answered with the same deliberate slowness as Somerville. "I … guess … there … isn't." She cleared her throat. "National security, then."

"Yes. We are here for the security of our nation," he answered in what Rose would later describe as _Dumbly_. "And when we are presented with nuclear equations and online purchase attempts of a well known nuclear agent, then we will investigate a potential threat to our nation."

Rose looked back to the head master and sniffed. "You do know that he's seven, yeah?"

"Eight," Gallifrey corrected quietly without looking up from the phone. "It's my birthday today."

"You're seven until four-sixteen this afternoon," Rose answered back with a wink and a smile. "So right now, you're seven."

"He's _seven_ ," the woman commented dryly. "With an immeasurable IQ."

"Yes," Rose answered. "He's gifted. A Savant. A Protégé. So what?"

"It's unnatural."

"You'd better not be callin' my son a freak, lady," Rose snarled. "He might be smarter than your average kid, but there are plenty more smart kids out there jus' like him."

The woman leaned to one side to pull a manila folder from inside her laptop bag. She made a show of opening it on her knee and flicking through a couple of papers. "Tell me, Miss Tyler. Are you in any way related to the Rosalyn Tyler, heiress to the Vitex fortune?"

Rose looked down to what she was wearing and raised her eyes to look upon the woman with disdain. "If I was, do you think I'd be spending my days smelling like a grease trap and serving food to smelly truckers who like to slap my behind for minimum wage?"

"I asked you a yes or no question," the woman fired back. "I didn't ask you to explain your current working conditions."

"My name is Rose Tyler," she snapped back in annoyance. "Not Rosalyn Tyler. I'm a single working mum, not a Vitex trust fund brat."

She held up a photograph and compared the woman with the image. "Well you certainly do look a lot like her."

"We all have seven people in the world who look identical to us, thanks for finding one of mine." She smiled at the giggle against her arm. "One down, six to go, yeah?"

"Rosalyn Tyler," the woman continued. "Is wanted for questioning by UNIT." She looked down to young Gallifrey, who peered at her through a messy chestnut fringe around his mother's arm. "It's suspected that she bore the child of a…" She cleared her throat. "Of a person of interest to UNIT and her sister organizations. A person who's intelligence far surpasses even the most brilliant of men."

"If he was shaggin' that dumb blonde and knocked her up," Rose muttered indignantly. "Then he's not that brilliant, is he?" She rubbed her chin. "No. Then again. Trust fund and all that…"

"This man has been identified by a similar organization as being dangerous…"

"Torchwood," Rose offered darkly.

"Oh," the woman answered with exaggerated surprise. "You've heard of Torchwood, then?"

Rose snorted and shrugged. "I have the internet. I buy into conspiracy theories. Heck," she chuckled. "I even believe in aliens – I reckon I may've even been abducted by one when I was younger."

"And did you fall pregnant to this _abducting alien_?"

"Yeah," Rose moaned with a roll of her eyes. "Because his version of _probin'_ didn't quite fit the stereotype of a _rear_ entry." She then inhaled a sharp and deep breath. "Don't be so stupid. Gal's father – while none of your business – isn't a dangerous bloody alien." She took hold of Gallifrey's wrist and drew it up in display to the woman. "Does he look like 'e's got tentacles and green skin?"

"That's racist, mum," Gallifrey muttered distractedly with his focus still tight on the phone. "Not all aliens have tentacles and green skin you know."

The woman looked to the boy's hand, and the tight lock the lad had on the phone his mother had given him. His focus was such that when his mother lifted his left wrist, his right rose up along with it. He had to straighten his back and lift his head to see whatever game he was playing on the screen.

"So, then Gallifrey?"

Gallifrey's eyes shifted from the screen and settled on the woman in black with cautious curiosity. "Yes ma'am?"

"What do you know about aliens?"

Rose rolled her eyes and groaned. "Right. That about does it for us, then." She stood up quickly and dropped her hand down to offer to help her child to stand. "Come, Gal. I think lipstick looney toones and her boyfriend need to go back to their little white room with padded walls."

Gallifrey jumped to his feet and smiled a toothy grin to his mother. "Can we go for icecream?"

"Sure thing, baby," she cooed with a smile. She glared back over her shoulder. "For bein' terrorized by the big bad evil…"

"You can't just walk out of here," Somerville snarled.

Rose and Gallifrey paused at the doorway. Rose dropped her hand to clutch tightly at her son's and threw a look over her shoulder. "Am I under arrest?"

One of the police officers shook his head. "No ma'am," he replied quietly. "You're not under arrest. You're free to go."

Somerville boomed a negative and shot to a stand so quickly that his chair toppled backward behind him. "You aren't free to go anywhere," he snarled. "You and your son are here for questioning and we aren't anywhere near close to finishing up asking you our questions." He pointed a harsh jut of his finger at the chair. "Now sit your ass down and answer our questions before I have you dragged out of here in chains."

It was the young boy who responded as he slowly turned and levelled a glare at the man. His tiny little body locked rigid and his gaze hardened as he stared a glare of fury at the man. "Did you just threaten my mother?"

"Gal," Rose cooed softly. "It's okay, don't worry 'bout it."

"No it isn't,' Gallifrey growled as he stalked toward the hulking figure of Somerville. He snatched the back of a chair as he passed and dragged it along behind him. "Noone threatens my mum."

"Gal…"

Somerville looked down at big chocolate brown eyes with a sneer in his smile. "Such a brave little morsel, aren't you? What you gonna do; headbutt my knees?"

Gallifrey looked up at him a moment. He let one brow arch high and then dropped his head with a shake as he pulled the chair in front of him. He deliberately pressed the back of it against Somerville's thighs and climbed to stand atop the cushion. This position gave the young man an inch in height over Somerville and so he smirked as he set his hands on his hops and looked down at him.

"Hooligans headbutt and make threats on ladies," he answered back indignantly. "I'm a genius. Not a hooligan."

Somerville snorted a derisive exhale through his nose. "And what do _geniuses_ do, then?"

Gallifrey grinned darkly and slowly raised his mother's cellphone as high as his shoulder. He rocked it side to side and grinned a threatening smile at the much larger man. "Geniuses do it like this." He dramatically pulled the cellphone in front of him and made an ostentatious display of pressing his finger against the screen in a specific sequence.

Immediately above and around them loud building alarms blared out through barely used and dusty speakers. Sommervile coughed lightly as he swept his hand in front of his face to clear it of falling dust jolted out of the speaker ports by the thumping voice coil pulsing against the dust cap of the speaker.

"You set off the alarms," he droned. "Well aren't you _clever_?"

Gallifrey quickly scrambled off the chair and kept his eyes to the ceiling as though expecting something further. "Yes," he blurted quickly. "I set off alarms that are reporting every known emergency at this building to every single emergency call centre in the city." He twisted his head and grinned at the organized thundering footfalls of his school mates being evacuated in the hallway past the office. "Every single department from Ambulance and Fire to Military are about to descend on this school." He tipped his head to one side and smiled. "Oh, and let's not forget the press. _Oh_. Hundreds of members of the press and UNIT vehicles parked right outside."

Somerville slowly clapped his hands in a darkly facetious gesture to the young boy. "Oh bravo. You're inconveniencing a few people. Well done…"

"Not quite," Gallifrey purred with a wink as each of the small glass bulbs in each fire sprinkler burst in a simultaneous pop above their heads. Immediately, every single sprinkler rained down tepid water. He grinned and looked at his watch. "Right on time."

Meanwhile, Rose stood quietly at the door, her hands on her hips and her eyes to the skies. She let out a slightly amused, but long suffering sigh. "Like father, like son."

Somerville pressed his hands down onto the back of the chair that Gallifrey had earlier been standing in and gave the boy a tired shrug. "That all you got, boy?"

"Nope," he sang with his father's heavy pop in his P. He cupped his hand over his ear. "Full evacuation of the school should be complete, and so.." A rumble shook the ground at their feet. He pursed his lips. "Ooh."

" _Ooh_ is never good, Gal," Rose said quickly.

"Specially not this time," he whimpered as he shot across the room and took his mother's hand. "We might wanna run. Like right now."

The other persons in the room stumbled as the rumbling intensified. Somerville glared at the young boy. "What've you done?"

Gallifrey slipped his mother's phone into the back pocket of his uniform trousers and then pointed toward the Principal's desk – where a rather expensive UNIT-issue cellphone sat. "Actually I haven't done anything," he declared. "The signals that initiated this sequence … originated from _that_ phone."

" _What_?"

"Oh, while you were talking alien probing and the siring of alien children, I was modifying the carrier signal on my mum's phone…" He paused as his wet little hand was tugged urgently by his mother. "Kay, mum. Be there in a tic." He tried to pull from his mother's grasp. "Using the donor signal from the internal rebroadcast antenna of your phone and reversing the polarization of the monopole…." He yelped as his mother tugged at him hard enough to almost pull his shoulder from its socket. "Mum!"

"We gotto go," she demanded when he looked up at her through a sopping fringe cascading tendrils of water from his eyebrows. "Never mind the gloatin'."

"But mum!"

Rose tugged at her child's hand and dragged him behind as she ran from the office and out into the school yard, which was now full of cheering and excited children unaware of the destruction that was about to befall their school.

She spun and pulled Gallifrey into her arms against her chest in a protective embrace as the school let out an almighty thundering roar and then collapsed onto itself in a cloud of red, orange, white and brown dust. She coughed and pulled her son more tightly against her as the dust cloud engulfed them all.

The cloud dissipated slowly, and so it was a very long minute or so until she could raise her head to look out at the damage her son had caused. She whimpered when all she could see ahead of her through the still-thick cloud of dust were two UNIT operatives, both drenched to their very core, and both very, very upset. She wasn't surprised at all to see both operatives aiming their handguns toward them both.

"Put your guns down," Rose warned loudly through the swirling winds and the cries and cheers of the kids surrounding them. "This field is full of young children."

The woman clutched at her weapon a little tighter. "And I'm protecting them against an obviously dangerous human hybrid. Hand over the boy, Miss Tyler, and we'll lower our weapons."

"You're not taking him," Rose shot back desperately. "He's my son, a child born on Earth. He's no more an alien than you and I." She inhaled a couple of deep breaths. "And he's all I have left. You're not taking him away from me."

"I'm afraid you don't have the choice," Somerville growled with a definite curl in his lip. "That hybrid freak of yours is coming with us."

"No," she growled in response. "You'll leave him alone. He's my son, not your play thing."

Gallifrey looked up at his mother's jaw, and the hard set of it as she battled her emotions against the threats of individuals who looked as though they'd be more than ready to fire a couple of bullets into her to get at him. He then passed a look toward the two agents, who had their attentions squarely focused on his mother. He could see the shift in their fingers that suggested immediate pressure upon the triggers if his mum was to make any movement at all.

"By the Gods," he murmured inside a wavering voice as he dropped into a crouch and rummaged through his backpack. He grumbled as he pawed his hands through waterlogged papers and stationery. "Where is it? Where is it? Whereisit?"

"You won't take him from me!"

"Step aside, Miss Tyler…"

He tried to ignore the argument raging over his head as he searched his waterlogged back pack for the one thing that he knew would save them both from this nightmare. He'd worked on it tirelessly for the past three months, ever since the last time his mother and he had to flee from their last home with Torchwood nipping at their ankles.

His mum bad barely made it out in one piece as they leapt aboard a moving train to take them out of London and deposit them somewhere in the Scottish moors. She was bedridden for almost two weeks, feverish and delirious, and too close to death. He nearly lost the most important person in the universe…

…He wasn't going to let that happen again.

He finally found his quarry and quickly strapped the device to his wrist. All wires, lights, crudely designed circuit boards and leather, he navigated a pathway with his fingers across a series of buttons to input some coordinates. There was the slightest buzzing and then burning sensation from the uninsulated join of two wires, but he paid it very little mind at all as he leapt up and threw his arms around his mother's shoulders.

"Hold on tight, Mum," he warned. "This might hurt a little."


	2. Wet and Soggy

A/N: Thank you for the wonderful comments. I'm so glad that my first chapter managed to capture you. I certainly hope that I can continue to keep your attention as I update as quickly as I can.

Fingers crossed that this doesn't disappoint.

~~oooOOOooo~~

"Hold on tight, Mum. This might hurt a little."

 _A little_ , she thought to herself as she felt her heart rise up into her throat, her innards race down toward her back side, and her brain leech through her ears and around her eyeballs. _A little_?

What had he done? What had that brilliant little child done to the both of them? Was he _trying_ to kill them both? Did he think that killing the both of them was an acceptable form of escape from UNIT?

"Hold on, Mum. Almost there."

Almost _where_? That throught swirled in her mind, but didn't make it past her lips. She was far too frightened to part her lips and say anything, lest her heart finally find its way out of her mouth and plop messily onto the ground at her feet. Fear of opening her mouth, however, didn't exactly stop it happening. An involuntary moan bubbled its way up her chest and found its way past her heart to leap from her throat. It was a groan that took so much wind from her, that Rose stumbled and fell off to one side. She felt unkempt grass poke into her hip and against her palm as she let her hand fall to steady herself and frowned as she wavered in her seat and looked around her.

"Okay," she breathed crookedly. "I think we're _here_."

"We are _here_ ," a small voice answered with a slightly distracted tone of voice. " _Well_. _Here_ being a subjective location I suppose…"

"Gal," she warned tiredly.

"..Considering neither you nor I really have a shared ideal locale. At least I don't think we do. _Here_ for you could well be the Powell Estates in Jolly old London Town, whereas _here_ for me is very much, well, _here_ , actually."

Rose moaned out a chuckle of disbelief. "Gallifrey Tyler…"

"And where is _here_ , I hear you ask?"

"I didn't, but please share." Rose rolled on her hip to seat herself comfortably on her behind and let her arms stretch out behind her. She looked at her drenched little boy with a smile of amusement. "With that intoxicating aroma of horse fields and manure swirling around us like a really cheap French perfume knockoff, I have to guess we aren't in _Kansas_ anymore."

A brow rose on the young boy's head as he turned to look at his mother with a cheeky smile. "Don't ever become a writer, yeah?"

Rose had to chuckle at his insult. "Promise." She raked her fingers over her wet hair and sighed softly as she took a look around them. She knitted her brows together in puzzlement as she noted fields and outdated brick fences covered in moss and grasses. "We're still in England, then."

"London, actually," he answered with a toothy grin.

"Oh shut up," she challenged with a slump in her seat. "We're nowhere near London."

"Seriously, Mum," he shot back with a laugh. " We're in the exact spot that we were when I zapped us out of there." He rubbed at his chin. "At least I think we are."

Rose leaned forward and wiped her hands against each other to rid it of dry grass, and then moaned as she drew herself to a stand. "At least you _think_ ," she parroted with amusement and a wink. "Tell me something. When you decided to demolish a school, explain to me how you somehow managed to disintegrate it and all the surrounding buildings in the process?"

"Well," he murmured in a huff. "That wasn't _exactly_ what I had planned. The demolition of the school was an unexpected side effect of the _event_ that I set in motion."

"I'm sure it was."

Rose shook her head as she moved toward her child and put her hands on his shoulders to check him over. She wasn't completely gentle in twisting his little body this way and that in search of any injury, and Gallifrey certainly didn't seem particularly affronted by her exam. He merely stood still and held out his arms in a practiced position and sighed a defeated sigh as he let her find her peace of mind.

"You're okay, yeah?"

"Yeah, Mum. I'm fine."

Rose cupped her son's chin in her hand and narrowed a look of assessment into his eyes, which he cheekily widened for her. "Are you sure you're okay, Gal? You're not hurt anywhere? Nothin's wrong that I need to know about?"

"I'm wet and cold," he offered with a shrug. "If you class that as being something detrimental to my wellbeing."

A frown of apology immediately fell across her features. "Oh baby. I'm sorry." She immediately tugged at her thin pink cardigan. "Here, have my cardi." She whimpered and fought back tears as she realized that it was as wet as the rest of her clothing. "Oh heaven help me."

"It's okay, mum," he assured her. "I was being flippant. I'm really okay."

"I'm sorry, Gal," she pleaded sadly. "I'm not doing so great in the mum department these days, am I?"

He let out a breath and strode quickly forward to wrap his arms around her waist and bury his head into her belly. "You're doing great, Mum. I promise."

"You're sopping wet and it's cold out here," she argued softly. "I don't have a towel to try you off, or even a…" she let up a gasp of victory. "Tissues! I have tissues. I can at least dry and wipe the dirt from your handsome little face."

He knew better than to say it wasn't necessary. She needed her moment to _help_ him with something, and so smiled up at her with a glint in his eyes. "That'd be great, thanks Mum."

Rose rummaged through her bag, which had thankfully been spared the bulk of the downpour, in search of the tissue that would save her son's face from dirt. She muttered to herself as she continued her hunt past lipsticks, keys, mascara, hair ties, nail files, papers, wallet, feminine needs, a five day old biscuit, breath mints, gum, ruined blister pack of Panadol, a muesli bar, a banana – that she immediately took out and thrust toward her son. "Eat," she demanded before she went back to her hunt for a tissue.

Gallifrey shrugged as he peeled back the skin of the banana and took a bite that was far bigger than his little mouth could handle. He had to eat with an open mouth, which drew a glare from his mother.

"Was a mouthful _that_ big really necessary, Gal?"

"M'Hungry," he practically choked. He forced a swallow and deliberately took a much _much_ smaller bite that was little more than a scraping using his teeth. He grinned a toothy grin at his mother's flat look at the obviously facetious act.

"I don't know if you get that attitude of yours from him, or from me," she muttered on a sigh.

He noticed that his mother had begun to sniff wetly and so hooked his arms around her waist and pulled himself in for a cuddle. It was a fight, but he tried very hard not to shiver in the cool breeze that had begun to blow across the fields. "We're gonna be okay, you an' me, Mum."

"I know, Gal," she agreed softly as she held him tightly. "We're always okay."

"Always." He smiled as she sighed and seemed to relax a little. "Together, you 'n me, Mum. We can do anything."

She kissed the top of his wet little head and nodded. "You know it, little Ape."

Gallifrey moaned at her playful wink and shrugged out of her hold. He shook his head at her chuckle and raked his hands through his hair as he looked around them. "Mum?"

"Yeah, Gal?"

"Do you, uhm, oh I dunno, do you feel _different_?"

"How do you mean?" Rose looked up as he turned around to face her. Before he could answer her, however, her fingers met with her quarry, and she let out a cheer as she pulled a small package out of her bag and helf it up triumphantly. "Here we go, Gal, tissues!" Her triumphant grin dropped, however, and she slouched slightly when she read the details on the package. "Oh come on…"

"What's wrong?"

She showed him the package and moaned. "Wet naps."

His eyes dropped and his head shifted forward just slightly to confirm that. "Wet. Naps," he read slowly on a flat tone as his eyes slowly rose to meet those of his Mother. After a couple of silent seconds, both mother and son spit out identical bursts of laughter at the irony of it.

"Brilliant," he said with a grin. "Because wet is exactly what we need right now."

"Oh thanks for that observation Lord Obvious," Rose said with a groan as she tore open the package and cupped her hand under Gallifrey's chin and worked to wipe the smears of wet dirt off his face. She tsk'ed her tongue at his wince of annoyance at her trying to clean his face. She paused, still with her hand cupped underneath his chin and lowered her face to glare playfully into his eyes. "Just be thankful, Gallifrey, that I didn't find dry tissues."

"Why's that?"

"Because then not only would you have the embarrassment of your mother cleaning your face, but you'd have the added shame of mum-spit on the tissue."

He groaned and faked disgust. "You're gross."

"I'm not Mr. Dirty-face."

"You need a mirror, I think."

Rose chuckled and completed her task, ending her cleaning with a swipe of her thumb across his cheek. "There. All clean and handsome."

"With a floppy fringe and all."

Rose kissed at that floppy fringe and scrunched up the dirty wet nap to drop it into her bag. She then sighed and looked around them. "This is where I need to ask just what it is that happened back there, Gal." She looked to her child who was attempting to look as innocent as possible. "I really want to start with how you managed to demolish the school building…"

"An accident," he pleaded with a desperate moan. "An accident. I didn't know that by increasing the electromagnetic fields in the basement that it would also increase the pressure in the steam pipes that would trigger a sequence of disastrous chain reactions that would lead to instability in the main foundations and…" He coughed into his fist at the flat stare of his mother. "And…"

Rose held up her hand. "And stop right there you little vandal."

"If you let me finish…"

"I don't need to," she gruffed. "The fact that you're outlining the potential sequence of events – and I don't know whether to thank you or slap you upside the ear for dumbing it down for me…"

"Thank me," he ventured with a toothy grin.

She cleared her throat and waited for him to shut his mouth and nod for her to continue. "The fact that you knew the potential ramifications of your _increasing of the electromagnetic fields_ indicates to me that it wasn't so much an _accident_ , but a _happy coincidence_."

"Little from column A, some from column B."

Rose winced and shook her head. "I've raised a criminal."

"They were threatening you, Mum."

"Not an excuse."

He folded his arms across his chest. "To me it is." He held up a hand when she looked to argue. "Mum. What would you do to protect me?"

"Gal…"

"I'd do the same," he assured her with staunch vehemence. "When we get back to dad, it's going to be the both of us, together. Safe." He hugged himself and looked to the ground a moment before he raised his head to look at her. "I want Dad to know that I looked after you just like he would – and that I kept you safe. He's gonna be proud of me, Mum."

Rose snatched her arms forward to pull her son against him. "Oh, Baby. He's already proud of you. Don't ever doubt that. Wherever your dad is, he's so very proud of you."

"We're gonna find him, Mum."

Her voice croaked as she pulled back enough to look down into his earnest face. "We can't, Gal. We're on other sides of a dimensional wall. We can't get through."

Gallifrey swallowed and gave his mother a slightly guilty smile. " _Well_. About that wall…"

Rose frowned a curious crease of her brow and angled her head slightly to regard him. She couldn't help but feel a swooping feeling in her chest at the glimmer in her son's eye. "Gal?"

He scratched at the front of his ear as though scratching at a sideburn and looked up at Rose with a smile. "I think I might've, possibly, perhaps, could've, sort've, maybe found a solve to that little problem."

Rose gasped and shook her head. She actually stepped backward. "No. Gallifrey, you can't. You just can't."

"But…"

She continued to shake her head. "He told me. Your father _warned_ me that crossing through the walls could collapse two universes."

"But, Mum…"

Rose began to pace. She held her head in her hands as she walked and fought against the ache of hope inside her chest. "We can't go through the wall, Gal. It's too dangerous to even try." She looked up at him through teary eyes. "I know how you feel. I do. I want to find him just as much as you do. I need him. God, I need him. Every day I need him. But we can't." She inhaled a shaking breath through her mouth. "We just can't. I'm sorry."

Gallifrey approached her cautiously and placed a comforting hand on her wrist to stop her pacing. "Mum. We already have."

She froze in place. "What?"

He grinned. "We're here. Like I said. We're _here_."

Rose shook her head, too scared to believe him. Her voice was barely a whisper. "That's impossible."

There was a breathy chuckle from the roadway. "Impossible, dear? Why there's no such thing. Especially not to a Timelord of Gallifrey – or a Timechild _named_ Gallifrey."

Both Rose and Gallifrey swallowed their inhales as they spun quickly toward the voice. Rose startled at the sight of a tall man with wide and piercing blue eyes peeking through a mass of wild dark curls that had escaped from underneath a brown fedora hat. His mouth was set wide in a toothy grin that grinned over the top of a multicoloured scarf looped twice around his neck, yet still dragging along the ground as he walked.

Gallifrey gasped as his hands shot up to cover his mouth. He felt the burn in his eyes as tears filled and spilled down over his cheeks. He panted lightly as he fought off a sob.

"Dad?"


	3. Four

A/N: Fingers crossed this worked out okay .. I faced endless interruptions throughout ...

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor barely heard the tiny voice through the emotional hoarseness overtaking Gallifrey's little voicebox. He didn't need to hear him, however, to know that the child had asked several questions inside of one three-letter word.

He offered him a grin that stretched from cheek to cheek. "Well. I rather suppose that I am," he breathed in response to what he felt was the most important question of the day. "While you weren't exactly sired from the loins of this particular incarnation, you are still the progeny of the Doctor – which is me. So yes, I am your father. Hello Son."

This time that three letter word wasn't spoken quietly, nor was it posed as a question. Gallifrey let the word bellow out of his chest as an exclamation as he launched from the circle of his mother's arms and leapt into the chest of the Doctor. "Dad! I found you. I finally found you!"

The Doctor stumbled just slightly at the rocket that was his child impacting his chest. His arms flailed unsurely either side of him as Gallifrey wrapped himself around his chest, and he looked toward Rose in question at how to handle the sobbing little creature that was attached to him. He made do with a tender pat of his hands on his son's back. "There, there, little one. There's no need for tears."

Rose frowned at the Doctor's confusion as to how to offer a hug – given that he was more than just slightly partial to a cuddle of any kind in the incarnations that she knew him. She stepped forward and touched her hands to Gallifrey's waist. "Come now, Gal. Give your father some breathing room, yeah?"

Gallifrey continued to sob as he shook his head against his mother's urging. He tightened his hold and buried himself tighter into his father's chest.

"C'mon, Gal."

The Doctor lifted a hand and shook his head at Rose. "It's okay, Rose. He must be overwhelmed. Give him a moment to collect himself." He looked downward with a smile and petted the young boy's head. "Take your time, young Gallifrey, although do keep in mind that it is rather brisk out here and you are soaking wet…" He looked up to Rose. "Come to mention it, you are as well. Dare I query the reasons?"

Rose shrugged. "Ask your son."

"Ahh," he breathed knowingly. "I expect it's an escapade worthy of a retell over a cup of tea in the TARDIS galley where you can both dry off." He looked back down to his son. "Am I right?"

Gallifrey case his head upward to look with red tear rimmed eyes up into the Doctor's face. "I love you, Dad," he vowed on a shaking voice. "I know you don't know me, and I don't expect you to say it back. But I want you to know that I do. I love you. And. And I've missed you so much." He wiped at his running nose with the sleeve of his shirt. "Me 'n Mum – we've needed you, and now we're here, together, and we can be a family."

The Doctor looked down into the child's distraught face and felt both hearts shatter inside his chest.

"Because you want us to be a family, yeah," Gallifrey pressed. "All of us?"

The Doctor couldn't even begin to try to stop himself as he snatched the young boy in for a hug against his chest. He clutched tightly at the youngster and looked up to Rose, who watched on tearfully.

"We'll be a family," he promised breathlessly. "One way or another, I'll make sure that you'll have your family."

A blonde woman wearing a pink coat that Rose would very likely be inclined to commit homicide in order to procure it clicked her tongue as she walked around the Doctor and Gallifrey to head toward Rose. "I would be wary of what promises you make, Doctor."

"Mind yourself, Romana," he hissed in reply.

Romana shook her head at him as she approached Rose and handed her a large fluffy white towel. "You'll catch your death if you stay out here like this," she warned gently. "Come to the TARDIS and dry off. We can discuss this current…" she sighed. " _situation_ we've found ourselves in in the galley over tea."

Rose gratefully accepted the towel with a smile. "Thank you," she said breathlessly as she hugged it to her chest for a moment, and then walked toward where her son was still buried within the arms of the Doctor. "Come, Gal. You need to dry off."

"I'm fine, mum," came his muffled reply.

"No you're not," she said firmly inside a sigh. "Now release your father and please come here and let me dry you off. The last thing we all need is a sickly little boy with a cough and a fever running around the TARDIS making everything slimy because of his snotty nose and penchant for wiping it with his hand.

"Oh I wouldn't worry so much about a cold," the Doctor said with a jovial tone and a matching smile. "Why the TARDIS is more than well equipped to…" He shushed immediately when Rose held up a finger in front of his nose. His eyes crossed to look at it's very tip.

"Rule number one with little Timelords: No goin' against what his mother says. Ever. Even if you think you know better…"

"Which he typically does," Romana offered dryly.

Rose smirked and tilted her head back to direct her words – but not her eyes – at Romana. "He does, doesn't he?"

"Quite often, yes."

The Doctor huffed and held out his hand in a request for the towel. "Rule number two should fall along the lines of: No attempting to emasculate the Timechild's father in the presence of said Timechild." He pulled the towel around Gallifrey's shoulders and pulled it snug as he looked back down into his face. "There you go, young Lord. Dry off, warm up, and we can have tea in the TARDIS."

Gallifrey grinned as he snuggled into the towel, which was the size of a blanket. "Thanks…" His grin widened. " _Dad_."

The Doctor grinned and lightly pushed his hands into Gallifrey's lower back to coax him to walk forward. "Off you go, young Gallifrey. Romana will take you to the TARDIS and see that you dry off and change your clothing. We have a big adventure ahead of us, so there's no time at all to waste." He clapped his hands as Gallifrey galloped toward Romana. "Chop chop. Off you go. I need to have a quiet word with your mother. We'll be with you shortly."

"Yeah, yeah," Gallifrey sang as he skipped backwards to follow behind Romana. He sucked in playful kisses at the air. "I don't wanna see the smoochie smoochie, anyway."

Rose was aghast. "Gallifrey Tyler! That's just about enough from you, young man." She tried to maintain the scolding visage of a mother with her hands on her hips, but quickly ended up dropping her head into her hand as her son cackled a maniacal laugh. "I blame _you_ for that, just so you know."

The Doctor gave a breathy laugh as he let his jacket slide off his shoulders and down his arms. "Boys will be boys," he stated cheerfully as he draped his jacket over her shoulders. "And I dare suggest that if you truly feel that young Gallifrey has inherited my personality, then you shall have much more to worry yourself over than a little fun teasing."

"I already know that," she sighed as she pulled the jacket closed and inhaled deeply. Her eyes fluttered shut at the familiar scent of him – her Doctor. She let out the smallest of moans.

The Doctor frowned slightly, but was intrigued by her sounds and movement as she nestled snuggly inside his jacket. He was most intrigued by the sigh and moan that escaped her. They were sounds of such longing…

"I've missed you, Doctor," she said softly on a breath. "It's been a very long time."

"At least eight years for you I would imagine," he offered with a shrug as he set his hand on her lower back to gently guide her into a walk toward the waiting blue box. "If I am correct in assuming that young Gallifrey is approximately three hours and fifty minutes shy of his eighth birthday."

Rose's eyes widened and she took a look at her watch. With pursed lips she nodded. "Fifty _two_ minutes," she corrected with a wink.

"And twelve seconds," he added with a smile.

"How long has it been for you, Doctor?"

He paused in his stride and let out a breath. "Rose. I'm not…"

"You've regenerated," she blurted as she wiped at her eye with the pads of her fingers. "So you're not _quite_ the same man that I… I…" she hiccupped. "That I fell in love with. I know, Doctor. I remember how it was the last time." She gave him a weak smile. "I guess this means we have to start over. I'll keep my distance, yeah? Hopefully you can fall in love with me all over again."

"Fall in love with you _again_ ," he said softly to himself. "I suppose, then…"

"I don't need time," she said softly as she resumed their walk and hoped that he would automatically join her. "I already know that no matter what your incarnation, I'm going to be in love with you." She sighed. "Been there, done that."

He was quiet for a short moment as he processed her words. "Just how many of my incarnations did you stand at my side?"

That comment drew Rose to an immediate halt. She felt her heart constrict in her chest as she slowly turned in place to face him. She wasn't sure if he could see that her eyes were swirling with tears waiting to fall. "You've never met us before, have you?"

He slowly shook his head. "I'm very sorry, Rose."

She hiccupped as both her hands rushed up to cover her face. The tears she held behind her lashes finally fell against her hands to slip in between their fingers to drop onto the Doctor's jacket. "Oh God. No. We're early, too early."

"Rose…"

Her head lifted from her hands and she gave him a weak smile. "Those inherited traits of yours obviously extend to his time-piloting skills as well." She inhaled a terrified breath. "Oh Gal. How's he going to handle that? He's so thrilled to have found you, and now I have to tell him…"

"Rose Tyler," the Doctor interrupted with gentle sharpness. He took firm hold of both her shoulders and gently forced her to look at him. "My dear and precious girl you need to calm yourself. Breathe. In and out, in and out. Breathe." He urged her with side eyes and an encouraging smile. "Yes. That's it. Just calm yourself and breathe. In. And. Out. Just like that."

She locked her eyes on his and followed his instruction. Heavy pants lessened to lengthened inhales that almost dizzied her. "How do I tell him, Doctor?" Her eyes then shot wide and she exhaled a huff as she slapped him hard on the shoulder. "Your companion was right! How could you make a promise to my son that we'd all be together? How?"

" _Our_ son," he corrected sharply. "I may be a much earlier incarnation than the man who actually impregnanted you, but that doesn't make me any less his father. _Your_ Doctor and I may have a different face, perhaps…"

"There's no _perhaps_ about it, Doctor," she snapped back. "You are have a completely different packaging to the man who made love to me to create our child." She saw the flash of argument in his eyes and raised her hand to ask him not to speak. Her voice softened. "Different face, different body, different personality…"

"But still the same man," he offered.

"I know," Rose said with a bouncing nod of her head. "I know."

"I promised _our_ son that he would have his family, and he will," he vowed. "And based on the conversation I held with the distraught Time Lord who put a call out across time and space begging for my help, the only incarnation of myself that is in any way worthy of having that family is the one who created it." He rubbed his thumbs up and down her neck where he half his hands on her shoulders, and let out a breath of promise. "But I can assure you, my dear girl. If that couldn't be. If the universe wouldn't let that happen, then I promise that any one of my incarnations would glady step up and hold both you and their young Lord to them in his place."

Rose inhaled a shaking breath and nodded.

"He will have his father, Rose," he vowed. "Pinstripes and sandshoes or not, Gallifrey will have his Time Lord father at his side from here until the end of his days."

"As long as that doesn't mean that you'll take him from me."

The Doctor frowned and shook his head. "Of all the species in all of the universe, the most dangerous creature is a Human mother – especially if threatened with the removal of her child." He smiled. "Timelords are a brilliantly intelligent race, but are also incredible cowards." His smile turned to a chuckle. "Not I, nor any of my incarnations would dream of inviting the ire of a human mother by taking your child from you."

"Good," she breathed with a chuckle as she rolled herself free of his hold and bumped him with her shoulder. "Because I warn you – I have a TARDIS key and I'm not afraid to use it."

"Ahh, my dear girl," he answered with a laugh as he resumed his trek to the TARDIS. "My TARDIS would have to _let_ you in. Key or not, entry is not always successful."

Rose brought up a hand and indicated the doors to the TARDIS with a jut of her shin. She waited until he looked toward the ship and then snapped her fingers.

The Doctor's jaw dropped as the doors of the old girl obediently snapped open. "Why I never…"

"She likes me," Rose sang with a wink as she curled around the doorframe.

He walked in behind her with a look of pure astonishment on his face. "So it would seem."

"Hi beautiful," she purred softly as she stroked at the console. "You look gorgeous."

"Oh don't go stroking her ego," the Doctor warned with a sigh. "She'll never let me hear the end of it." He looked upward. "Will you, old girl?"

Rose gave him a tongue-touched smile and spun inside the console room with her arms stretched wide. "Her hum. Her glorious smell. Oh, how I have missed this beautiful machine." She stopped spinning and pulled her hair off her mouth as she regarded the Doctor standing with a smile beside the door. "So. You're going to help us find _my_ Doctor?"

He opened his mouth and breathed out a long note, _Ahhhh._ He then inhaled and frowned just slightly. "Well, we don't really need to begin a hunt, as such, for your Doctor, Rose. I can safely say that we know his exact location, and that location isn't very far from here at all."

"Oh," Rose said cautiously having detected the rather obvious _but_ in there. "Is this going to be a matter of _when_ rather than _where_?"

"Not quite," he answered with a slight wince.

"How _not quite_?"

"It is not a matter of _when_ or _where_ ," he admitted. "As it is a matter of _who_."

Rose frowned in puzzlement. "I don't understand."

"Yes, that was the conundrum faced by Romana and I when my tenth self tried to explain himself to us." He cleared his throat and widened his eyes somewhat as he recalled the conversation. "And let me state that I seem to have developed quite the mouth in my later incarnations."

"The oncoming babble," she said with a chuckle.

The Doctor flicked a brow high and offered her a curious stare. "I expect that's an inside joke between you both."

"Yep."

"I see." He let out a breath and extended his hand to the doorway that led to the main corridor of the TARDIS. "Let's just say that the Doctor you knew is not the man he is now."

"How do you mean?"

"Oh," he answered with the lightest of chuckles. "That's a very long story…"


	4. Jelly Babies

A/N: That's it ... I'm done with this chapter. I am not at all impressed with it, but I'm not fighting it anymore. It's long, too long, but every time I go in and tweak and omit parts of it, it somehow grows even longer.  
I won't be hurt if you tell me this is awful .. because quite honestly, I think it is. But I need to get to Farrington and Ten/Smith ... and I couldn't get there without a little explanation, yeah?  
I hopehopehope you can still hang on and stick with me when it's done...

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor had tried the very best that he could to ignore her look. He really did. He spent a very good part of the past twenty-five minutes reciting the triumphs of Rassilon over and over again as though still a pupil at the Lungbarrow home learning by rote with his faithful tutor in an attempt to ignore her look.

" _Hear now of Rassilon and his mighty works. He, who single-handedly vanquished the darkness and_ …"

"I can honestly stand here all day while you pretend not to notice me," Romana purred with amused annoyance as she leaned back against the galley walls.

He continued to potter around at the sink as though he was busy preparing tea. "Would you like me to tell you that I'm impressed with your stamina, Romana?"

She shook her head. "I'd like you to answer my question."

"You'd have to ask me one, first."

"I've asked you several," she intoned blandly.

"Oh did you now," he questioned jovially. "Well. My apologies. I didn't hear you. I must be losing my hearing as I pass through each regeneration."

Romana rolled her eyes and shook her head. "You're certainly losing something, Doctor," she muttered under her breath.

"What was that?"

"Never mind," Romana shot back quickly. "It wasn't complimentary," She peeled her back off the wall and strode to where the Doctor had set up a plate of Jammie Dodger cookies laid out in a circle surrounding a rather large pile of Jelly babies.

"The day I receive a compliment from you, my dear Romana, is the day I stop running and return to Gallifrey." He opened his mouth and widened his eyes as he watched her trying to retort and huffed out a pair of breaths that came out like "nuh-uh."

"I wouldn't fake one even for _that_ , Doctor," she finally managed with a smile as she picked up an orange jelly baby and inspected it closely. "I have to question a civilization of people who create sweets in the shape of infant children." Her focus shifted from the lolly up to the Doctor. "You have to admit it's rather odd."

He snatched the sweet from her fingertips and quickly popped it into his mouth. He grinned a toothy grin as he chewed it. "I'm rather partial to the orange ones."

"I like the black ones," Gallifrey cheered from the doorway before he bounded across the floor and leapt up onto a stool. He immediately used a finger to rifle though the pile of sweets in search of a black one. He found one and grinned in an identical manner to the Doctor when he popped it in his mouth. "Yummy."

Romana shook her head. "Distinguished Lords of Time, indeed," she muttered sarcastically. "Didn't either of your mother's teach you to eat with your mouth closed?"

"Actually," Gallifrey mumbled wetly over his masticated sweet. "My mum taught me to multi-task. I can chew _and_ talk at the same time."

Romana had several retorts that came immediately to mind, but not one that was in any way child appropriate. Instead, she opted for a moan of disdain. "A skill no doubt revered by your species?"

"Yep," he answered with his toothy smile as he continued to chew. He giggled to receive a wink from the Doctor. "So. Are we going on an adventure, then?"

"Ahh my boy," the Doctor half cheered as he snatched a pair of Jelly Babies in one hand and popped another in his mouth. "We're already on an adventure. Life is the biggest and most wondrous adventure you'll ever take."

Gallifrey flicked up a brow. "But it's more exciting if you take a TARDIS on that adventure, yeah?"

Romana shook her head and pushed back off the table. "If there was ever any doubt at all, Doctor, that comment erased it." She drummed her fingers on the tabletop for a brief moment and stepped away. "That child is definitely yours."

"Oh yes indeed," he answered as he threw another jelly baby into his mouth. "A fine young man if I do say so."

"Womb born, too."

"Very special."

"Without the permission of council."

The Doctor's smile faltered just slightly. The faltering smile quickly became an expression of disgust. "They don't ever have to know, do they?" He saw his son's curious look and quickly shook himself. "But of course, this child was born several centuries from now. It's very likely that council gave approval for he and many other children."

Gallifrey was intrigued as he searched out another black jelly baby. "You need permission to have babies," he queried innocently. "Is that kind of like needing a license? Mum says that they should force people to have licenses to have babies because most of them out there are – and I quote – _Bloody idiots who shouldn't ever procreate_."

Rose's voice thundered in from the doorway. "Language, Gal. How many times do I have to tell you that you should mind your language in the presence of others?"

He groaned and slouched a little. "Sorry, mum." He turned to look at her, and gasped when he caught sight of his mother standing in the doorway wearing an empire-waisted lemon yellow and white lace and satin dress. He let out an appreciative whistle. "Wow mum. You look beautiful."

Rose gave her son a smile and took handfuls of her skirt to hold it out and spin just a little so that he could see it fully. "I've never worn anything as pretty as this before."

"Pretty it is, Mum, but it pales in comparison to you," Gallifrey cooed with a wink. He then looked to the Doctor. "Am I right, Dad?"

The Doctor picked up his jaw and nodded shortly. "Yes. Yes indeed. It's charming. Very charming."

"The king of compliments you are," Rose muttered with a shake of her head as she walked into the room and climbed up on the stool beside her son. She immediately licked at her thumb to wet and settle a cow-lick that popped up in his fringe. "Is there something wrong with TARDIS, Doctor?"

He looked up from dropping a pair of sugar cubes in his cup of tea and gave her a curious look. "Not that I'm aware of, Rose. Why do you ask?"

"Well," she began as she took a look down at her outfit. "While I think this is one of the more beautiful dresses that she's ever given me – and there have been a couple of really nice ones – I'm concerned that there really doesn't seem to be anything beyond the 1920's on offer."

"Yes," he droned quietly. "Circa 1913 more accurately."

Rose nodded with a frown. "Yeah, okay. 1913. She's not giving me anything that might be a little more _my_ style." She dropped a brow to look at him suspiciously. "Is this…" She dropped a brow to look at him suspiciously. "Is this _your_ preference, maybe?"

"There is a reason for TARDIS' choices of clothing, my dear," he managed with a smile. "And it has nothing to do with the preference that I, or any of my companions may have."

"Although," Romana offered with a smirk. "She has been known to attempt to persuade your fashion choices if she doesn't particularly like your style." She held out her hand in a manner she knew was an acceptable custom of the people of Earth. "We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Romanadvoratrelunda."

Rose's eyes widened as she took Romana's hand and gave a respectful shake of greeting. She flapped her mouth in an attempt to quietly try to repeat that name, and then frowned as her son repeated the name flawlessly before popping a sweet into his mouth.

"Romana is acceptable," the Doctor said with a smile. "Believe me, I had trouble with it the first few times I tried to say it, too."

Romana smiled in recollection. "I told the Doctor to either call me Romana .. or Fred … He ultimately went with Romana."

Rose smiled and shook her head. "I'm actually surprised he didn't go with Fred."

"I'm personally thrilled that he didn't."

Rose took a green Jelly baby and bit off its head. "So. Are you a Timelord like him, or are you from Earth?"

"I'm a Time _Lady_ ," Romana answered casually. "I grew up on Gallifrey and attended the Academy."

"Okay."

"And I'm really nothing like him at all."

Rose looked to the Doctor. There was a small spark of something best unnamed in her eyes when she looked back to Romana. "Are you his wife?"

The Doctor seemed to choke on his mouthful of biscuit. "What?"

"You told me that you had a wife on Gallifrey," Rose offered with a shrug. "I was wondering if she was her."

"By Rassilon no," he shot out urgently. "Why, the council would have me hung and drawn if I even considered courtship. There is at least a six-century age gap between us." He drew his hand up and down in the air in front of the Time Lady. "And let's not forget that she's still a child."

"Hardly a _child_ , Doctor."

Rose turned to Romana, who looked amused. "If you don't mind me asking…"

"Close to a century and a half."

Rose's eyes widened a moment, but then fell into a friendly expression. "And you look incredible for a centurian with fifty years experience."

Romana curtseyed. "Thank you. I do try my best."

"As I said," the Doctor repeated gruffly. "She is a child, and I – at over seven and a half centuries – would be considered a monster for looking at courting, let alone wedding, her." He circled his finger in front of her. "And don't take credit for your appearance, Romana. You stole that body."

"I _regenerated_ into this form, Doctor." She threw her hair over her shoulder and raised her head high. "At least I took the time to choose a form appropriate for a Time Lady instead of just…" She used her hand to indicate his form. "Instead of just letting the regenerative equivalent of a TARDIS randomizer pick something like _that_ for me."

"Ahh, but that would ruin the surprise, wouldn't it?" He looked to Rose and gave her a wink and a smile. "Teenaged girls can be so vain. And you ask me if she is my wife."

Rose gave him a tongue-touched smile. "I find it funny that you're complaining about age gaps and _teenager_ Time Ladies. There is almost a nine century age gap between _us_ , and I was twenty when your Tenth self propositioned me and took me to his bed." She looked to her child. "Gallifrey was conceived on the night of my twenty-first birthday, actually."

Romana burst out laughing and slipped off her stool to put her empty cup in the sink. "Let's see how you talk your way out of this one, Doctor."

" _Well_ ," Gallifrey offered in his slightly distracted-but-I-really-want-you-to-know tone of voice. "If you take a moment to compare the average lifespan and aging between both the Gallifreyan and Homo Sapien Sapien species, the gaps really do lose their significance."

Rose slumped. "Gal…"

"Oh no," the Doctor encouraged with a smile. "Do let the lad continue. It would be remiss of us to stifle his intelligence by not listening to what he has to say."

Gallifrey grinned widely, thrilled to see the look of pride from his father. "Well, an initiated and regenerating Time Lord of Gallifrey has an average lifespan of anywhere up to five millennia…"

"Give or take," the Doctor offered with a chuckle. "Some have known to get right up there in the teens. Barring accidents, a Timelord could quite easily live for thousands upon thousands of years."

"Go with me on this, Dad," Gallifrey urged, much to the delight of the Doctor.

"Five thousand years. Yes. Let's work with that, shall we?"

"Now the lifespan of the average human, based on our timeline, of course, is about eighty to ninety years of age, depending on race, gender, yadda yadda. Now, working the math, if we find the common denominator that can bring us a much more linear…"

Rose moaned her son's name.

"A five thousand year lifespan compared to a ninety year span – I'm being generous there, Mum, what with you being all jeopardy-friendly and all that." He looked up and squinted his eyes as he worked the problem in his head. "Five Thou divided by ninety gives a result of 55.56 Gallifreyan years to each earth year of life to a human. Given that mum was twenty when Dad decided they should get their phreak on…"

"Gallifrey!"

"Twenty times fifty five and a half is one thousand one hundred and eleven years and a bit." He looked back toward his mother with a wink. "So technically, you were older than Dad by a century."

"Not quite a century," she deadpanned darkly.

The Doctor chuckled. "Less than a century is quite an acceptable gap for a coupling between Lords and Ladies."

Rose's eyes were wide as she considered what her son had said. "So my age comparable to a Gallifreyan is over one-thousand years? My God. Now I feel so old."

"Timelord," Gallifrey corrected. "A non-regenerating Gallifreyan can live for only a handful of centuries if they're careful."

She let out a huff of surprise. "And how do you know that?"

Gallifrey shrugged as he popped another sweet into his mouth. "Ever since we arrived here, my head's been filling with all sorts of information." He grinned. "Like a download!"

Rose frowned and looked toward the Doctor. "I don't know that I like that. How's he getting all this new information? From the TARDIS? Is she gettin' into his head?"

The Doctor put his elbows onto the table and leaned forward to look closely at the young lad seated across from him. He took a moment to analyse him, only stopping when Gallifrey grinned and widened his eyes in a cheeky manner. He shook his head and leaned back. "I really don't know."

Romana let up a laugh. "Oh. That's a first."

"And isn't it wonderful," the Doctor remarked with a smile. "A puzzle for me to solve. A delightful conundrum to figure out. How delightful."

"I don't see anything particularly wonderful about my son's head bein' messed with," Rose countered sharply. "I don't want him to burn up, Doctor."

"Oh he won't," he assured her gently. "He's a child of a Timelord – of one of the cleverest Timelords…"

"The least humble of all the Timelords," Romana offered with a roll of her eyes. "Which is really saying something when you take into account that the entire Timelord Society is filled with self important men who…"

"Are you forgetting that it's the same society in which you were loomed and raised, Romana?"

"Which makes me an expert on the subject."

"Indeed," he huffed with a shake of his head. He then passed a look toward his son. "You're at the age now where you should be inducted into the academy and time travel." He widened his eyes a moment and swallowed. "And you have already begun your adventure into passing through the vortex…"

"And dimensional walls," Rose added with a low growl. "And is something that you and I are going to discuss at great length, young man."

"That's not so difficult," the Doctor offered. "Timelords have been doing it for many millennia."

Rose frowned. "But you told me it was impossible, that it could destroy universes to fracture the walls between dimensions."

"Oh yes," the Doctor answered quickly. "Fracturing the walls can be quite disastrous, and is something that should never be done under any circumstances." He shuddered. "The potential ramifications of breeches between walls is quite terrifying."

"But," Rose said with a frown of confusion. "But you just said that it's easy to get through."

"By creating stable portals between travel machines either side of the wall, yes."

"Oh," she muttered with her frown quite firmly in place. She didn't understand, but chose not to continue admitting such and risk a rather lengthy discussion on Temporal Physics that would very likely leave her with so much more confusion than she was already experiencing. Instead she pressed her hands into her temples. "I've got a headache."

"Oh well that won't do," the Doctor stated with a smile as he rose from his seat and walked around the table to stand behind her. "Take a seat, Rose, and let me take a look."

"Oh no," she replied quickly. "You're not goin' inside my head."

"Well no," he said cautiously. "That wasn't my intention. I was going to offer you a head massage. I took a course in phrenology once, you know. I found the idea of it quite fascinating. The science however wasn't exactly sound, and it ended up as nothing more than unproven hypotheses presented as verified facts, but it did teach me the art of a really good head massage."

"I'll be right, ta," she said with a shake of her head as she walked around to the seat he had vacated to plop herself down at the table. She flicked her hand at him. "You just stay over on that side of the table and keep your _massaging_ fingers away from me." Her eyes widened. "Did I really just say that?"

He grinned. "You did. And I dare say it's an extreme loss for you, as my fingers have quite the gifted touch."

"I know," she admitted on a longing sigh. Her eyes then widened. "I mean. Yes. Yes, I'm sure they are." She shuddered a moment to shake herself free of the sudden rush of impure thoughts that just raced through her mind. "So," she said with a squeak. She then cleared her throat. "So. Uhm. To change the subject a little. When and where are we?"

Gallifrey bounced in his seat and raised his hand in the air. "Ooh! Let me! Let me answer that!"

The Doctor let up a laugh. "Go right ahead, my boy. Show us what you've got."

He grinned and then let one brow drop and his teeth grit together as though concentrating really hard. "England. Early twentieth century. Oh, n. I have to narrow that down. Gimme a Mo." He clenched his eyes shut and bobbed a little in his chair. He made a light straining noise and then opened his eyes and looked hopefully toward the Doctor. "Very early November – I want to say the 2nd – 1913. Right now it's 2:30 in the afternoon. The TARDIS is currently parked at the very edge of a grove of trees beside a farmer's field. There is a very small village only a short walk from here. No name. Built around an all-boys school. Farrington!"

Gallifrey looked with a wide and anticipative expression. "So? How'd I do?"

The Doctor's jaw was gaped and his eyes wide with surprise. Romana's expression was very similar, but she managed to break the look very quickly. She leaned down cheekily toward the Doctor's ear. "Can I keep him?"

The Doctor's expression didn't change. "I must say, young Gallifrey, that your time sense is remarkably well refined. Tell me. Where have you trained? I didn't realize that there were any Time Academies on Earth."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Oh don't be so daft, Doctor. He hasn't been to any academies. Just public school for this little Timelord wannabe. He's only eight and barely into his 3rd grade education."

"He's in a _public_ school," the Doctor shot incredulously. " _My_ son, the descendent of a Timelord of a Prydonian chapterhouse, _in a public school on Earth_?" He shook his head. "No. This won't do. Won't do at all."

"Well where'd ya think he was gonna go, Doctor," Rose snapped back indignantly. "Not like I have a spaceship or a TARDIS to ferry him between the great Timelord Academy and my little flat on Earth."

The Doctor put on a stern expression as he leaned forward across the table to bring himself closer to Rose. He adopted a serious look and lowered his voice. "I'm stepping in. My son is leaving the public system and will be enrolled in a private all-boys school."

A brow slowly rose high over Rose's eye. "Ya think? You got the money for that, because I don't." She patted her hips as though patting a pair of pockets. "Fresh out of funds right now."

"Got it covered," he said with a one-sided smirk.

"Really?"

"Oh yes."

"And just _which_ school did you have in mind?"

A smile broke out across his face and he sat back in his chair. "Why Farrington, of course." He folded his arms across his chest and winked at her. "Already enrolled. He starts tomorrow morning at eight."

Her face fell quickly. She looked toward Romana, and then back to the Doctor. "Does this have anything to do with why the two of you are here?" She swallowed and gave the Doctor a worried look. "And anything to do with _my_ Doctor not being, well, _himself_ right now?"

He patted her hand. "Our reasons for being here are _somewhat_ related, Rose."

"And we won't say much more beyond that, I'm afraid," Romana added. She then looked at the Doctor. "Well that is to say that we really _can't_ say much more."

"Why not?"

Romana looked to the Doctor and shrugged. "Because we don't really know ourselves. We received a summons to assist by the Doctor's rather shattered Tenth self…"

Rose gasped. "Is he okay?"

"Well not so much so at the time…"

The Doctor cleared his throat sharply before she could expand on that. "He is – and will be – perfectly fine, Romana. Please don't upset her by saying otherwise." He looked to Rose with a gentle smile. "He called because he noticed that we are part of the events that take place here and at Farrington. In order to prevent a paradoxical event, had to reach out to us to complete the circle…"

Rose swallowed a lump. "And _we_ includes me and Gal?"

He nodded.

She felt her heart hammer against her chest in worry. "And he's not here with us, why?"

He rubbed at his chin and pursed his lips in throught. "Well. That would be because he is otherwise indisposed."

Rose bit at her lips and nodded a moment. The look that fell over her features was one of indescribable hurt. "Somethin' more important than reuniting with me and Gal?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Nonsense. There is nothing more important to the Timelord Doctor than the two of you."

"I can't help but notice you were specific on the Timelord designation there, Doctor."

He waggled his brows and gave her a lazy grin. "Clever girl."

"You mentioned something about _my_ Doctor and how he isn't _him_ anymore?"

"Yes," he barked with a smile. "That's right."

"Then tell me," she breathed. "Tell me what's happened to my Doctor." She took his hand. "Tell me how we help him."

He looked to Romana, who gave him a nod of encouragement, and then looked back to Rose and her son. "You're familiar with the concept of regeneration, yes?" he began slowly.

"It's the Timelord way of cheating death," she answered with a nod. "Every part of you is changed, right down to the cellular level. It's a complete rebirth."

"To put it in simple terms, yes it is," the Doctor answered with a wink toward his grinning son. "But it's not the only trick we have in our arsenal." He looked back to Rose. "There is another kind of _regeneration_."

"Oh I wouldn't call it that," Romana interrupted quickly. "It has nowhere near the class of a complete regeneration."

"You don't think so?"

She shook her head. "Regeneration is a magnificent combination of swirling Artron energies drawn from the Vortex of time. It rebirths the body and spirit, while keeping the mind and the memories of millennia of travel and triumph completely intact."

The Doctor looked toward Rose with a smile and a roll of his eyes. "She makes it sound rather romantic, doesn't she?"

"A Chameleon Arch," Romana continued with a louder voice that showed her disapproval of him interrupting her. "Is a crude form of mental and physical torture that destroys a Timelord's mind and turns him into a lesser species." She folded her arms across her chest. "Regeneration is bravery, the Chameleon arch is cowardice."

"Oh come now, Romana. It isn't that bad."

"Why else would a Timelord willingly turn himself into a human if it wasn't because he was being a coward?"

Rose gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. "The Doctor is…" She inhaled and tipped her head in question. "He's a _human_?"

Gallifrey reacted in much the same manner as his mother. "Human?"

"A rather clumsy and simple one at that," Romana remarked with a smile.

Gallifrey huffed. "Well that's a little mean, don't you think?"

The Doctor shook his head. "It's very true I'm afraid, Gal. Your father – the incarnation of me who was responsible for your existence that is – has changed himself into a human." He smiled a smirk that quivered in a silent and suppressed laugh. "And he's not too bright, I can tell you that."

"You do know that you're talking about yourself, yeah," Rose snapped indignantly on behalf of her Doctor.

"As Romana stated, the Chameleon Arch is a very crude device that doesn't allow for very much refinement on the character you are given." He scratched at his hair. "It is designed to hide a Timelord in plain sight. Designed so that noone – not even another Timelord – would be able to recognize him."

"I see," Rose murmured more to herself than to the Doctor.

"He loses everything about himself," Romana continued. "He has no thoughts, no memories, no knowledge of who he was, who his friends and family are. All he knows is what the Arch has given him…"

"…Which is a head full of fake memories and information," the Doctor finished for her.

Rose blew out a breath. "Kind of like rerecording over a tape. You wipe out the old and save the new."

The Doctor grinned widely and fist pumped the air over his head. "Exactly, my dear. That is it exactly."

"So all he knows is who he is under this Arch thing. He believes he's this guy – whoever he is…"

"John Smith," the Doctor clarified. "He's a teacher at the Farrington Boy's school."

"Oh," Rose huffed facetiously. "At the _school_. The same one you want me to send Gal to?"

"Well. Yes…"

"So. He's not going to remember anything at all," Rose began in a rather disgusted tone of voice. "He won't remember anything that he and I did together. He's not going to know who I am. He's not even going to know his own son." She raised her eyes to look through her brows. "And you expect me to put my son in that position? To finally have his father within arm's reach, only to have him yanked away from him like that?" She slammed her hands into the table and shoved herself up to a stand. "Your species might be so cruel, but the human race is not."

"I do beg to differ," The Doctor remarked with an insulted tone. "Some of the worst acts of cruelty I have witnessed throughout my travels across the universe have been committed by Humans." He screwed up his nose. "Distasteful, really."

"If you're sayin' that my species is more cruel and cowardly than a Dalek, then so help me I'm gonna thump you into your next regeneration." She curled a lip and raked her eyes up and down his chest. "And here's hoping that your next body is younger, leaner, and better looking." She indicated his head. "And with better hair!"

"And just what is it, exactly, that you find wrong with my current form? I am very distinguished and classic, I'll have you know." He shoved himself to a stand and practically growled as he stood tall and checked himself left to right with a twist and a turn of his body. "I think I look perfectly fine for an eminent Lord of Time." He picked up a spoon and used it as a mirror to check out his curls. "And what's wrong with my hair?"

Rose hiccupped into her cupped hands. Her shoulders slumped and her head dropped forward. "Why?"

Gallifrey knew the position well. "Oh, Mum." He slid off his seat immediately and wrapped himself around her. "Don't cry. Please don't cry. We'll fix this."

Rose clutched her child against her chest and gave the Doctor a terrifically pained expression. "How can you expect him to not want to connect with his father," she accused. "All Gal's ever wanted since the moment he was born was to reach out and find his dad. And now you're just taking it away from him. You're just gonna dump us off here, swan off with your TARDIS and leave me to pick up the pieces of a shattered little boy's heart."

"I'm not going anywhere," the Doctor replied on a soft voice.

Rose's voice was barely a whisper. "What?"

He approached them cautiously and lifted his hand to tenderly stroke the backs of his fingers down her cheek. "It honestly hurts me to know that you'd believe I'd do something like that to you."

She took his hand in hers to pull it from her face and let it drop in front of her. "You don't even know me," she accused him. "How could my thoughts on who you are even matter to you."

"You're the mother of my child, and the intended bondmate of my Tenth self," he countered. "Trust me. It matters."

"To _him_ , perhaps," she snapped. "You're a few hundred years away from having to worry about it." She turned to head to the doorway of the TARDIS. "Come on, Gal. I really think it's time that we…"

"He asked me," he interrupted with slight desperation in his tone. "Begged me, to protect you – the both of you."

Rose released her hold on Gallifrey to spin and look toward the Doctor. "Excuse me?"

"On his knees," he clarified. "At my feet. Begged me."

Rose shot a look to Romana, who lightly shook her head. "He's not exaggerating."

The Doctor snatched his hand up to cup the back of her head. He steeled an icy blue stare into her eyes and spoke through gritted teeth. "I want nothing more in this entire universe than to take the two of you back to Gallifrey, put you in a safe house, and make sure that I never _ever_ have reason to be so destroyed that I have to _beg_ my past self to look after my wife and child…"

"I'm not his wife," she managed meekly.

"…But I can't," he continued. "We're part of events. Events that _have_ to happen in order to prevent a paradox." He broke away from her and turned to stalk toward the counter. "I have no idea what's coming, what I'm supposed to protect you from, or even _how_ to protect you."

"All we have," Romana continued, concerned that the Doctor was unable to do so. "All we know is what his Tenth incarnation could tell us – which is admittedly very little."

"But if he was there," Rose asked with a frown. "How wouldn't he know?"

"He did," The Doctor answered over his shoulder. "But he couldn't say anything. He couldn't say anything that could influence the decisions we make moving on from here." He huffed. "He has to keep the timelines as intact as possible."

"Are we in a fixed point," Rose asked gently. "Is that what the problem is?"

Romana nodded.

"Do you know what it is," she asked worriedly.

"No," Romana replied with a frown. "We can't see what it is. Not yet." She sighed. "All we know is what's coming isn't entirely pleasant."

"When we know what that point is," the Doctor said quietly. "And we can ensure that it doesn't involve you then we're getting you and Gallifrey clear of here." He spun on his heel and swiftly approached Rose and her son again. He touched one hand to her cheek, and the other to his son's. With a smile he looked between them both. "I'm not leaving you; either of you. Like it or not, you're stuck with me for the time being."

Rose leaned into his touch and lifted her hand to clutch at his. Her eyes fluttered closed as she stepped forward to be able to press her forehead into his chest. "Just keep my son safe, Doctor. That's all I ask. Keep him safe and promise me … _promise me_ … That you and _him_ don't break his hearts."

"I promise."

The Doctor cleared his throat suddenly and pulled back from her. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms a moment, and then pulled back completely and clapped his hands together. "Right. So. Now that we have that all cleared up." He held his hand down in invitation to his child. "Follow me. Did your mother ever tell you about my dog, young Gallifrey?"

His eyes shot wide. "You have a dog?"

"Indeed I do. K-9's his name. Want to meet him?"

Rose shook her head as she watched the Doctor and Gallifrey walk hand-in-hand out of the galley. "Tell me, Romana," she said softly in question. Slowly she turned her head to look toward her. " _My_ Doctor. How bad was he when you spoke with him – and _why_?"

Romana considered the question for a short moment and then directed Rose to sit at the table with her. "All of the Doctors are _your_ Doctors," she advised slowly. "Don't ever distinguish between them – it's actually upsetting to a Time Lord to hear the object of his affections speak more highly of another incarnation."

Rose let out a laugh. "I'm not the object of his affections," she corrected with a smile. " He's the Fourth, yeah?"

"He is."

"Well, I met and fell in love with him in his ninth – that's five regenerations from who he is now – and then fell in love with him again in his Tenth." She looked down at the tabletop. "My human lifespan probably won't take me into his next regeneration, so… "

"If you're loved by one," Romana interrupted. "Then you're loved by them all."

Rose merely offered Romana a curious look.

"He's a Timelord," she answered in manner to suggest that it was all the answer required. "And please don't be so concerned about the one you call _yours_."

"I can't help it," she admitted. "If he's a bumbling human and he comes across something that he can't handle…" She winced. "Romana, he won't regenerate, will he?"

"No."

"But…"

"And that's why you and I are going to take care of the bumbling human fool," she stated with a smile.

"How? By hiding in the bushes?"

Romana let up a laugh. "By Rassilon no. When Gallifrey starts tomorrow as a pupil in the halls of Farrington, you and I will act as nurses assisting the matron in her duties." She offered an indignant look to Rose when she gave her a look of surprise. "What? Do you think I'd let _him_ lock me here in the TARDIS twiddling my thumbs and just _waiting_ for something to happen? He can sit idly by, I won't."

Rose pursed her lips and thumbed toward the door. "Does _he_ know that?"

Romana smiled widely. "It was decreed necessary by his Tenth self. He had no choice in the matter."

"Brilliant," Rose laughed. "Just brilliant." Her laughter subsided and she snatched a jelly baby off the table. "So we have to report in tomorrow after I enroll Gal?"

"Gallifrey's already enrolled. The Doctor and I took care of all of that a few days ago."

"Like a boy scout, isn't he?"

"Not sure I understand the reference."

"Never mind," she said with a roll of her eyes. "So. We have a new boss. What's her name?"

"Redfern, I think her name is. Joan Redfern."


	5. Martha

A/N: Never think you can write a chapter of anything when you have a wee Timelord who has control of the TV remote and wants to put on classic Who...

I did read a transcript of this scene and wasn't entirely sold on it. So I knicked a bit, and then I changed it to something I preferred. I also gave Jenny a less educated way of speaking... just because ... My apology if my change in her characterization bugs you.

I hope you still enjoy!

~~oooOOOooo~~

"I worked hard, studied hard and sacrificed a social life to ensure that I wouldn't end up on my hands and knees on a floor with a scrubbing brush in my hands…"

"I wouldn't go about gripin' and complainin' if I were you. The Lord knows the walls here 'ave ears. Before you know it, you'll have all your stuff packed up an' they'll be kicking you to the curb."

Martha Jones let out a long suffering breath and nodded as her fellow maid – a frumpy and jaded woman named Jenny - continued with her warning.

"Plenty of other people would take your position before the door closed itself behind you. Don't forget that, Martha."

She let out another sigh.

"You're lucky you 'ad Mr. Smith vouch for ya so you could get this 'un, because I know of at least three other girls who'd think it a privilege to go to his chambers and take him his tea and tidy his things."

Martha distractedly threw her scrubbing brush into the bucket of soapy water beside her knees. "Oh I'm very sure there are," she murmured with a frustrated sigh.

Jenny hissed out a sound to tell her to shush, but not before a shadow fell upon the two women and Martha looked up. Her face broke into a smile to see her boss, Mr. Smith, stride past them.

"Morning Sir," she said with a genuine smile.

"Yes," he answered with distracted autonomy. "Hi."

Martha could've rolled her eyes at his unashamed oblivion. Based on the conversation they'd had when she'd delivered his morning tea and papers, she could assume that his mind was on the _extraordinary_ dreams he'd been having.

"Look at 'him." Jenny whispered with a hoarse laugh so as not to be overheard. "Head in the clouds, that one."

"You have no idea," Martha murmured under her breath as her eyes followed him up the stairs.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," she said softly as she dipped her hand back into the soapy water to retrieve her scrubbing brush. She cleared her throat and rocked forward to brace herself on a hand once more and began to scrub the tile. "Nothing at all."

Jenny leaned to the side as she scrubbed to speak quietly to Martha. "Why you so sweet on that one? "I'm sure there're much more age and class appropriate fellas…" She chuckled. "that 'ave their feet firmly on the ground."

Martha shrugged as she scrubbed. "He's kind to me, that's all. Not everyone's as considerate as he is…" She rose up off her hands and swept her hand down her front – chest to knees. "Not to people like me. Not in this day."

"People like you," Jenny queried. "As in a _Londoner_?" She shook her head and chuckled lightly. "Would think you'd 'ave the whole lot of us clamourin' 'round wanting to hear the tales of…"

"Good old London town,' Martha finished with a smile. "Oh, the stories I could tell, Jenny."

"I'm sure," Jenny said with a laugh. "And the more spicy your tales, the more the girls will love 'em."

Martha leaned toward Jenny and winked. "Then I'll write a book with enough salacious debauchery that the girls will be forced to read it by candlelight underneath their blankets in their quarters so they aren't discovered."

Jenny inhaled sharply as a pair of shadows fell, and then stopped over them. She looked up quickly into the face of a pair of senior students. "Hello sirs," she said in greeting when she realised that they weren't going to be leaving them alone.

"Eh, you two. You're not paid to have fun. Put a little backbone into it."

"Yes sir," Jenny blustered quickly. "Sorry Sir."

He leaned forward and regarded the frumpy maid with a sneer on his rather handsome face. "You missed a spot."

Martha gave a frown and looked at the tile around them. She didn't see nary a blemish and so frowned in confusion. "It looks very clean to me, young Master."

He snapped his head sharply to glare at her. "Are you answering back to me, jungle girl?"

Martha's eyes shot wide with insult. "What did you…"

"You have a problem?" He kicked a foot forward toward the bucket to spill it on the ground. "I'll have you mopping this up for the entire morning."

A small pair of hands quickly caught the bucket before it could do more than slop a small amount of dirty, soap water on the tile. "Whoopsy."

The senior student spun in place to glare at a younger child, who was quickly rising to a stand with the bucket in his arms. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Oh," Gallifrey huffed with a smile as he steadied himself with the bucket held to his chest. "Just preventing you tripping on this dangerous bucket, Hutchison," he said with a grin. "This bucket is made of a very tough steel alloy that is guaranteed to give your big toe a bruise if you were to kick it hard enough." The edges of his mouth dipped downward in a thoughtful frown. "When you factor in the additional weight of the water and sediment from the dirt cleaned from the floor, it does create a much heavier mass that, well, that could cause tendonal damage if the kick is not made at the precise location where the leverage point for easiest tippage is." He stooped to set the bucket on the ground and gave Martha a wink. "It would be a shame for you to have to visit the medical bay and perhaps spend some time on crutches for something as easily preventable as accidentally kicking a water bucket, wouldn't you say?"

Hutchison took a step toward Gallifrey, his expression warning that we was of the mind to lay a beating on the child.

Gallifrey was nonplussed. "You can thank me if you wish," he offered with a shrug as his hands found their way into his trouser pockets. "But it's really not necessary. I'm happy to help a fellow classmate out of an awkward situation."

"You're new here, aren't you," Hutchison snarled.

Gallifrey gave a manic grin and tipped his shoulders side to side in a slightly excitable bounce. "Sure am. First day, actually." He held out his hand. "I'm Gallifrey. Gallifrey Tyler, but people call me Gal. Well, people I like anyway. I'm not quite decided on you right now, although we do have the rest of the semester to figure it out, yeah?"

Hutchison ignored the hand proffered by the younger student. He stepped around him tight enough to bump the hand however, and flicked his fingers for his classmate to follow him. He levered a sharp look at the youngster. "I'll let you off this time because it is your first day, _Tyler_. But I won't be so accommodating the next time."

"Oh. There's really no need to be like that," Gallifrey huffed. "This school's so small, and we really all should get along don't you think?" He looked down at the two maids still on their knees and rocked back onto the heels of his shiny black shoes. "It makes for a very uncomfortable time when we don't get along, wouldn't you say?" He looked back to where the boys were and let out a disappointed breath to see that they'd already left the corridor. He shrugged. "Oh. Okay then. See you both later I suppose."

"Thank you, Sir," Jenny said on a quiet and rushed breath. "Although it wasn't necessary for you to step in an' help like that." She looked along the corridor. "It's not a good idea to make enemies on your first day."

Gallifrey dropped into a crouch and used the edge of his robe to wipe up the small spill. "Not a good idea to be friends with moron's like that, either."

Jenny gasped and shielded a giggle behind her hand. "You'd best watch yourself sayin' things like that. You'll get into trouble with your fellow students."

"Oh," he sang as he finished wiping the spill and brushed at the robe as though it was dusty and not waterlogged. "I think I can handle myself okay. Spent a lot of time trying to get myself out of trouble, me. I've become a bit of an expert at it."

"Thank you, young sir," Martha said finally. Her face was set in a tight frown as she took in the freakishly familiar appearance of the young lad. "Have we, perhaps, met before?"

He didn't look up from his robe, but he smiled widely. "Oh, I don't think so. I'm from a very long way away from here."

"And so am I," she offered gently.

He raised his eyes to her and his smile only widened. "I can see that." He reached up over her head and poked at the air above her as though he could see something surrounding her. "A very long way from home, aren't you?"

Her voice became worried. "What are you saying?

He then gave a couple of very fast blinks and shook himself. "Oh. Yes _Sorry_. What I mean is that your skin colour suggests you're from off-shore. Not too many people around here are born with skin such an exquisite colour." His voice tapered off and he looked over her head again. "Or with a time tree so brilliant and widely spread. So many ways to go, so much choice, so many brilliant outcomes." He dropped his eyes to hers. "You are _brilliant_."

Martha frowned as she felt fear creep into her chest. Her voice fell to a whisper. "What are you talking about?"

Jenny laughed. "That must be the best pickup line I've ever 'eard. And from a young'un no less." She picked up her bucket and held her hand out to ask for Martha's. "I'll go change the water for us. We've got the soccer team comin' in shortly, and it's frightful outside. We'll need fresh water to deal with that mess."

Gallifrey gave her a toothy grin as he held up the bucket for her. "You should make 'em clean up after themselves. That's what my mum does to me when I track in the mud."

Jenny took the bucket and smirked at him. "I wouldn't 'ave a job if I went about and did that, now, would I?" She looked back to Martha, who stared with a gaping mouth at the youngster. "I'd watch this 'un if I were you, Martha. Looks like he's sweet on ya."

"Oh," Gallifrey said with a grin. "I think I'm sweet on just about everyone." His smile immediately fell as his ears processed what his mouth just said. "Oh. My. That didn't come out right, did it. I mean that I tend to like people. Like them as in think there's good in all." He looked with desperate eyes to Martha. "Know what I mean?"

"Who are you," she queried on a long exhale. "Why are you here?"

Gallifrey frowned. "I just told you," he said with confusion in his voice. "My name's Gallifrey. I'm new here." A grin took over his confusion. "First day. Trying to make friends, play nice, not get into trouble – like my mum told me to." He frowned again. "Although she does say that trouble should be my middle name. Which is isn't," he clarified with a look into Martha's face. "It's actually Pete. After my grand dad. And. Well. I guess he's been known to be a little trouble happy, so maybe it really is trouble." He tipped his head curiously. "What do you think? Pete is, oh I dunno, latin for Trouble or something?" He frowned. "No. That's Perturbo. Although it's kind've close, yeah?"

"Who are you?"

Gallifrey frowned a tight grimace. "You're not listening to me, are you? That surprises me, because you do seem to me to be someone very open and eager to learn." His brow lifted. "A scholar, even."

Martha lowered her head to hide her worry. "I'm just a maid, young master," she said softly. "A maid from a family of servants."

"I do find that hard to believe," he offered. "You seem very different to other servants."

"I can assure you that I'm not."

He locked at the corner of his lip, and held his tongue there a moment. He then tugged at his ear and dipped his head slightly with the hope she would look up at him. When she didn't, he sat on the tile in front of her and folded his legs into a cross ahead of him. "Can I tell you a story?"

"You really shouldn't sit on the floor like that," she advised shortly.

He looked down at his crossed legs and shrugged. "Yes, I know. Bad for my developing hips and all that. Mum tells me that all the time, but it really doesn't seem to worry the teachers. They always make the kids sit like this." He sighed. "Like obedient little robots."

Martha's head tilted ever so slowly. "A robot?"

"Ahh, yes," he breathed with a smile. "Bit early for that descriptive, yeah?"

Martha felt her heart seize in her chest. "I-I don't understand."

"Back to my story, yeah?" He said jovially. "So anyway. There was once this fellow named Achille Ditesheim. A very intelligent and artistic fellow from Switzerland. In 1881 he founded a watchmaking company that produced watches that, oh, that were so beautiful and highly sought after." He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "To wear one of his watches is to declare wealth and success." His face tightened up a little as he tugged on an ear. "Oh, in time the company produced models that were more affordable to the less affluent, but early on, you had to be from a wealthy family to own one of their time pieces." He dropped his hand again and offered her a warm smile. "Following me?"

"Is there a point to this story," she muttered around a swallow.

That made him chuckle. "You know, that _is_ a good question. Sometimes I get on a babble and completely lose the original point I was trying to make. Drives mum nuts, it does. But this time…" He winked. "This time I do remember my point and why I'm telling you the tale of the rise of Movado."

Martha's eyes flashed wide and her hand flew to cover at her wrist. "It was a gift," she spluttered. "From … from my old master. To my mother. She gifted it to me."

Gallifrey's eyes widened and his lips pursed in a tight "O" shape. He pressed those pursed lips together and then nodded. "A gift, yeah?"

"It's really none of your concern," she answered shortly. "Unless you want to report me because you suspect I stole it."

"Oh no," he huffed urgently. "No. No. That's not what I'm driving at." He patted the air in front of him. "Hear me out, okay?"

"Okay," she said warily as her palm covered her watch completely.

He grinned a wide and toothy grin. "So anyway. The Movado developed a very distinct style, you know. One of their most immediately recognizable pieces is the Museum watch. It's distinctive." His toothy grin fell to a soft smile. Defined by a solitary dot at twelve, which symbolises the sun at high noon…" The toothy grin returned. "Did you know that?"

Martha shook her head. "No. No I didn't."

"Oh," he breathed with false disappointment. "You didn't? Oh. Well. I suppose that's hardly surprising, really." He blinked. "Because the iconic museum dial wasn't designed until 1947." He waited a moment for her to inhale a gasp. "That's, what, thirty four years from now?"

Martha shuffled back on her knees and then leaned forward to press her hands into the floor with the intention to push herself to a stand. She remained on her hands and knees, though. "Who are you?"

"Better question is who are _you_ ," he breathed in response, his eyes darkening. "Did you follow us?"

Martha couldn't do much more than stutter a single syllable over and over.

Gallifrey narrowed his eyes. "Early twenty first century. London. You're definitely a scholar, Doctor perhaps."

"I-I don't know wh-what you're talking about."

Gallifrey rocked forward to roll onto his knees in a mirror of Martha's position. "You're here almost a century out of your own time," he accused. "Did you follow us? Are you after me and my mum?"

"What?"

"Are you with UNIT," he growled. "Torchwood? Who are you working for?" He let her stutter and followed the awkward movements of her head with his eyes. "Well you're gonna fail," he snapped. "Fail. You're not gonna get mum, and you're not gonna get me. You go back and you tell them that we're safe now. Me and mum, we're safe. Dad's not gonna let them get anywhere near us. You hear that? We're with Dad now, and he'll make sure that we don't have to run anymore."

Martha looked absolutely stunned. "I really don't know.."

"You couldn't get us when it was just me and mum. Not even close." His two hearts were pumping so fiercely in his chest that he was sure she could hear them. "And if you couldn't do it when it was just me and mum, then there's no way you'll come close now that Dad's here."

Martha's hands flew up quickly to cover her mouth. The Doctor had warned her about watching for the _family_ coming for him. Was this them? Had his efforts to conceal himself as a human to evade them failed?

"I don't understand," she finally pleaded. "I'm not after anyone. You're simply mistaken about the watch."

He let one side of his mouth curl upward in a smile and leaned in close. "You better hope so, because the Doctor's…" He stopped suddenly and his head shot up at a pair of female voices that entered the main foyer.

"What about the Doctor," Martha demanded on a low voice. "What about him?"

Gallifrey's eyes were locked on the two blonde woman standing at the base of the stairs. "The Doctor," he breathed. "Is here."

"And what do you want with him," she hissed.

He snapped his head to look at her. His expression practically screamed out his confusion to her question.

"Oh stop pouting Romana," Rose's voice laughed from the stairway. "He wasn't being serious."

"Serious or not, Rose," Romana hissed. "I am deeply offended by his remark. I am noone's _nurse_ , especially not one to _him_."

"Just take a moment to appreciate the irony," Rose laughed. "And admit it, it's funny. It really is. The Doctor and his…" Her laughter stopped when she saw her son on the floor with a maid. "Gallifrey?"

He jumped to his feet, his face alight with a beaming grin. "Mum," he yelped as he threw himself into her waiting arms.

"Why aren't you in class, Gal?"

"Yes, Gallifrey, you're late," Romana warned.

He pointed to the hallway. "I was just on my way, Romana, Honest. I just got caught up talking to this lovely maid."

Rose looked toward Martha with apology. "He wasn't bothering you, was he?"

Marta shook her head, and spared a look at the young lad before she answered. There was warning in his eyes. "No. Not at all, ma'am. He's a delight."

Romana petted Gallifrey's shoulder with instruction he should be on his way. "Well then. Off you go. Timelords are not supposed to be late."

"Understood," he shot back with a playful salute. "Best be off, then." He hooked an arm around the necks of both women so that he could press a kiss into their cheeks. "See you later." He stepped back and spared Martha a look before he took off down the hall. He pointed two fingers to his eyes, then directed a pointed finger toward her.

Martha watched as he disappeared along the hallway with his robes flapping behind him not unlike the Doctor's coat when he took off down a hallway. Suddenly young Gallifrey's familiarity became crystal clear…

…It was time to go visit the TARDIS…


	6. Joan and John

A/N: Okay. I'm having a rather spectacular problem in writing any affection between John and Joan ... I have typed and deleted and typed and deleted again. It hurts. It physically hurts. I think I'm gonna need help to make this go the way I want it to go. I think I know where to find that...

I hope you like this chapter. Gallifrey free!

Thank you for the wonderful reviews! Your comments make me want to write more! It's fantastic to hear from you and to know that I've got people reading as I go... I certainly hope that you all continue to enjoy!

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose was still chuckling, and Romana still pouting, when they entered the nurse's office at Farrington. Both of them wore the standard grey dress with a white, frilled, apron of the era, and both of them caught each other scratching at the various itches that the stiff and starched fabric caused. They had agreed back onboard the TARDIS that they would each stop the other if they did succumb to the annoyance and start to scratch, but all they had done this far was breathe out a sympathetic moan to the other when it happened.

Romana was tugging on the collar of her dress when they were approached by a rather plain looking woman in a matching uniform wiping her hands on a white towellette.

"Good morning ladies," she said with a friendly smile as she quickly flicked Romana's hand from her collar. "It'll take some wearing and washing in to soften the fabric of your uniform," she advised with a knowing smile. "But in the meantime, I can suggest a cream that should aid with the irritation."

Romana rolled her neck, and closed her eyes as she let out a breath of annoyance. "I have what's necessary to stop the irritation," she managed through gritted teeth. 'I'll retrieve it from my quarters on break."

The Matron gave a light laugh. "Should we be able to take a break," she said. "With the frightful weather outside, we can be guaranteed that we will have a rush of scruffed knees and banged heads from the younger students. Typically during the colder rainy days, we are run off our feet."

"Delightful," Romana breathed.

The matron held her hand toward Rose. "I'm Matron Joan Redfern, and I'm in charge of the nurse's station. I'll be creating your rotation schedules after you've completed your first week of orientation, and am to be the one you call when we receive the more serious or questionable cases."

Rose took her hand and gave it a firm shake. "I'm Rose. Rose Tyler. And this is…"

"Romana," The Time Lady interrupted without taking up the Matron's hand. "Dvoratrelundar." She looked around the room with a light frown in her brow. "It's European."

"Quaint," Joan said quietly. "I do hate to come across as offensive, but that name might be rather difficult for the younger students to pronounce, typically we don't allow our students to refer to the staff by their first names."

"Then perhaps it would be good for them to expand their vocabulary a little," she muttered dryly. "Add some international culture to their education."

"The curriculum here at Farrington is quite advanced in comparison to other schools," she replied indignantly in defence of the school. "Enrollment is for children considered to be above average intelligence…"

"Or financially well off," Romana added. "I mean no insult to you or this facility. If I didn't believe that this would be a nurturing environment then I wouldn't have applied for the position."

"Which was a posting that surprised many of the staff," Joan admitted softly. "We weren't advised of any open positions on the faculty, and so your assignment here did come as quite a shock to us all." She paused and offered a smile to Rose, who had this far been very quiet. "That isn't to say we don't appreciate your arrival. The good Lord knows that we could use all of the assistance we can. Illness does run quite rampant throughout a school when we have a cold or a flu, and we are swiftly approaching the season where those illnesses are most likely to strike."

Rose smiled a wide grin. "So what you're saying is that we will be wiping a lot of noses and putting iodine on wounded knees."

"On an average day, yes."

"Okay then,"she sang with a laugh. "As the mother of an adventurous little man, it's something I'm more than used to."

Romana gave her a light frown. "Gallifrey succumbs to such things?"

"Don't they all?"

"Not where I'm from they don't. I'll have a word to the Doctor," she offered with a sniff. "He'll be interested in knowing this and perhaps he can help prevent further incidences of that nature."

Joan cleared her throat lightly to get their attention. "Our only access to a Doctor is a fortnightly visit from the board-appointed surgeon. In the event of an emergency, however, we can send for the Doctor in town. We try not to bother him unless absolutely necessary."

Romana lifted her brows and turned to face the Matron. She held her hands clasped behind her back. "Would you be particularly opposed to my fellow nurse and I making a few updates to your facility here?"

"Probably not a good idea," Rose warned quietly under her breath. She smiled as she sang a single word through her teeth. "Timelines…"

"Yes," Romana acquiesced with a huff. "Quite right I suppose."

"We already have the most up to date and advanced equipment and treatment options across the entire private school system," Joan assured. "But I do admire your enthusiasm." She took a step backward and indicated the door that led to a room with a pair of gurneys against the walls. "If you'll follow me, I'll show you where everything is."

A small commotion at the door had the three ladies quickly turn and quickly walk back through the door in order to investigate. They each held different reactions to the sight of a young boy with his head in a waste paper basket, and a frazzled teacher with the front of his vest coated in vomit and mucus.

Romana's nose scrunched and she looked to Rose with an expression of disgust. "How pleasant an introduction to school nursing. I'll go find some towels and a prepare a bowl of water."

Rose rushed forward with her hands out to comfort the sobbing young man who hiccupped between retches into the bucket. "Oh, sweetheart. Let me take a look at you." She raised her head to assure the teacher that they would look after the young man, and her breath caught in her throat.

"Mr. Smith," Joan said with humour in her voice. "I see that you were the unfortunate obstacle between this young man and his bucket."

John Smith looked positively green himself. He coughed a couple of small retches before he could compose himself to answer.

"It would seem that I did," he answered with a wince. "I haven't yet learned the telltale signs of a young man about to vomit."

Joan clicked her tongue a couple of times and shook her head as she pulled on a pair of gloves and slowly approached him. "Can I rely on you to remove your vest without having to put you in a bed beside William, or would you like me to remove it for you?"

"That depends," he muttered sheepishly. "Do you have a bed available?"

"I think one can be arranged," Joan answered with a close-lipped smile. She stepped toward John Smith and looked to the floor, and to where Rose was crouched in front of the ill child. She noted the watering inside of the woman's eyes, but put it down to the body's natural reaction to the sight and smell of vomit. "Miss Tyler. Can you please take young William into the next room and clean him up? I'll deal with making sure that Mr. Smith here doesn't become another casualty."

Rose nodded shortly and sniffed a wet sound. "Yes. Of course. My apology." She nodded toward the teacher. "Mr. Smith."

He leaned around Joan as the Matron stepped toward him. His eyes widened with momentary recognition, but the look quickly vanished as Joan tapped on his shoulder. He swallowed as his voice awkwardly called out after her. "Oh yes. Thank you. Miss?"

"Tyler," Rose answered quietly. "Rose Tyler, Sir." She put her hand on William's shoulder and leaned down lightly. "Come on, William. Let's get you cleaned up and looked after."

John Smith's eyes watched as she left the room, but fell to the woman standing in front of him as she tapped again at his shoulder.

"You need to remove your robe, Mr. Smith," she said with amusement at his confused expression. "Or it will make removing your soiled vest rather difficult."

"Oh yes, yes indeed," he mumbled as he took a stride backward and let the robe slide off his shoulders. He looked back to the door. "You have new staff, Miss Redfern."

"Two new nurses," she answered with a look toward the door. "Miss Tyler and Miss Dvoratrelundar. Both of them from London. They came highly recommended by the King's physician."

"I see," he answered quietly. "Highly unusual that the Royal House would send out two of their own to a small school such as ours."

"Miss Tyler's son has begun his studies here," she remarked with high brows as she fumbled with the buttons of his vest. "As we are the top private school in the country, I would expect that Miss Tyler requested to the Palace that she be posted here with her child. Poor dear. Her husband is missing and believed deceased. Several years now as is my understanding." She raised her eyes to his. "That poor child has been raised without a father, and his mother is unlikely to find herself a suitor willing to take on a child of his age."

He gave her a warm smile. "I'm sure that you can sympathise with her, Miss Redfern," he offered gently. "You understand the difficulties in losing your love."

"I can," she replied softly. She raised hopeful eyes to his. "There is always the dream that it can come again, Mr. Smith, and sometimes I think that's the hardest part. The waiting." She unfastened the last remaining button and opened the vest to reveal the shirt underneath. "Now would you like me to remove it for you; or do you think you are able to handle that yourself?"

The look in her eyes was one of invitation, and John found himself quickly looking away as he felt his face flush crimson. "Oh. Why no. I think I am able to manage myself, Miss Redfern, but thank you for your kind offer." He shook his shoulders to let the vest fall without having to actually touch it. It fell to the ground in a heap and he looked at it with a frown. "I should ask Martha to retrieve another from my quarters before I return to class."

"We should check you for fever in the meantime," she offered clinically. "I can have word sent to your maid to see that you have a fresh vest." Her face broke out into a smile. "I'll have one of the new nurses tend to you – it will allow me to see how they work. Is this okay with you?"

"Quite," he answered quickly as he followed behind her. "I'd like to make my own assessment, too, considering I'll be sending my pupils their way."

He looked up as he entered the room and took a moment to see both of the new nurses working to settle the ill child he'd brought in. It was immediately clear to him which one of them was a mother. Rose Tyler worked with tenderness that was instinctual rather than trained. Her words were soft, and her touch very gentle. She understood that the young lad was upset and in pain, and did everything she could to comfort him, even when the treatment required a less than tender touch.

Romana on the other hand, while brilliantly efficient, lacked the mothering quality possessed by Rose. She moved with clinical precision, quickly, and without too many words.

As a pair, Rose and Romana seemed to perfectly balance each other out.

"Miss Tyler," Joan called as she entered the room behind John. "Leave Miss Dvoratrelundar with William. I need you to take a quick look at Mr. Smith and make sure that he won't be the next patient we have to look after." She smiled cheekily toward John. "After all, this is a facility for children…"

"Oh which men have proven time and time again to be far worse than," Rose cut in with a chuckle. She ignored the glare that Joan shot her at the remark in favour of hearing the chuckle of agreement from Romana and led John toward a gurney. "Please take a seat."

John shuffled toward the table and spun to seat himself on its edge. He stumbled slightly as he sat too close to the edge, which slid him forward, but he quickly recovered. He moaned with a sheepish smile as he heard Romana bark out a single laugh that she tried to cover up as a cough and tugged at his ear as he shuffled backward.

Rose stepped up in front of him and raised her hand to pet at his knee as she would've done, and had done, so many times on the TARDIS, but made do with pressing it into the mattress beside him. She looked into his face and let her eyes lock onto the deep chocolate eyes that had haunted her dreams for nearly nine years. She tried desperately to control her voice, knowing for sure that it was going to waver, or squeak, or not come at all.

"Hello," she managed softly.

"Hi," he answered back with a grin.

"So. Uhm." She dropped her head and let out a chuckle. "So looks like you need a checkup, then?"

"My nurse says I must," he answered with a look toward Joan. "But I don't really think…" His breath hitched as she cupped at his chin to lift his head and touch at the very edge of the underneath of his jaw. The intention was obviously to check for swollen glands, but the gesture felt so very familiar with an equally familiar touch. Although the touch should have prevented speech as she probed, he found his jaw had loosened up quite nicely.

"You see, I had a run in with a young boy who I am sure was able to spin his head an entire 360 degrees before he opened his mouth and unleashed the demons of Hades all over my vest. And I like that vest, I'll have you know. Got it from my father when I graduated university."

"Really," she said with a soft laugh as she kept one hand on his face and reached to the table to retrieve a thermometer.

"Yes. _Really_ , Rose Tyler," he shot back. "University on Gallifrey wasn't as easy as many would have you believe. I could retell tales of mayhem in the lecture halls and grounds of Cadon that you wouldn't believe. Well. You just might. Not sure if the same level of hijinks happen here, or if it's worse. Probably worse knowing the people that I know. But I digress. My father had his tailor make a full three piece suit, Italian…"

Both Romana and Rose stared at him with gaping mouths. Rose's hand dropped from his jaw and she took a step backward.

"Doctor?"

He shook himself a moment, and then looked toward Rose with confusion. "Doctor? Do you think I need one?"

Joan stepped in quickly. "Yes, I believe you might," she answered with concern as she pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. "You seem delirious, Mr. Smith."

Rose stepped in close to Joan, ready to take over. "Are you sure? Is he gonna be okay?"

"Panic is not a good quality in a nurse," Joan chided with a glare toward Rose. "If you could please give Mr. Smith some breathing room, I'll take it from here."

"I feel fine," he assured with an embarrassed smile. "Perfectly fine, in fact."

"Let me be the judge of that thank you," Joan warned him. "I've never known you to be a man who speaks nonsensically like that. You aren't well."

Romana tugged Rose by the sleeve to guide her back and away from the pair at the gurney. She kept her voice low. "Rose. What happened?"

"I don't know," she whispered back hoarsely. "I didn't do anything."

"He spoke of Cadon and Gallifrey…"

"Maybe it's part of his character," she queried with a contorted expression of puzzlement. "Makes sense, yeah?"

Romana wore a tight frown as she shook her head. "No. The TARDIS wouldn't give a character so obviously Gallifreyan. The Arch _hides_ the Timelord, not puts him out there in human form to be destroyed."

"Could he be reverting back to Timelord," she questioned with wide eyes. "I mean. It's possible, yeah?"

"Absolutely not," Romana hissed. "There's only one way to change back, and it's not by natural reversion." She rubbed at her brow and frowned. "At least the texts suggest it can't happen."

"You've never used it?"

"By Rassilon no," she huffed. "Why would I want to do something as abominable as turn myself to a Human? To the best of my knowledge it's only ever been utilized once or twice since the Arch was created."

"One. I'll try not to be offended by that, it's a tough ask, but I'll try. And two. So what you're saying is, you have no idea."

"I'm afraid I don't."

Rose frowned. "But that was _him_ , Romana. That was the Doctor." Her breath hitched as Joan picked up a stethoscope to listen to his heart. "My God, Romana. If he's changed back, and he's got his two hearts."

"Should be impossible," Romana warned, but her voice wasn't exactly certain enough to be completely encouraging. "But…."

They both held their breaths as Joan held the bell against John's chest and listened intently as she checked against her watch. Rose couldn't help but drop her hand to clutch at Romana's as they waited for the inevitable panic at the perceived increased heartrate that the double hearts always produced. They both exhaled simultaneously as Joan took the earpieces out and gave him a smile.

"Sounds quite perfect," she told him as she set the stethoscope on the bed. "No elevation of your heartrate at all."

"Normal," he questioned quietly. "Not even _slightly_ elevated?"

She met his eyes and blinked slowly as a smile stretched across her face. "Not even _slightly_."

He touched at her hand with the very tips of his fingers. "I find that hard to believe." He quickly grabbed her hand and held it firm against his chest. "Feel it, Miss Redfern, I'm sure that you'll feel…"

"Mr. Smith!"

John Smith gasped and released Joan's hand with a movement that was practically a shove as Martha burst into the room with a new vest in her hand, and obvious panic on her face.

"I heard that you were ill, Mr. Smith," she blurted. "Are you alright?"

"Quite fine, Martha," he answered with the smallest waver of embarrassment in his voice. "I brought in an ill child who managed to vomit on my vest. Matron Redfern thought it pertinent that I receive a checkup to ensure that I wouldn't fall victim to the same illness." He pulled on the vest. "Thank you for bringing me a fresh one."

"Are you quite sure, Sir," Martha pressed. "If you aren't feeling well then I am sure I can…"

"Can, what, dear," Joan asked shortly. "Prepare him a bowl of soup? Mr. Smith has been assessed by professional nursing staff. I can assure you that we are much better equipped to determine his wellbeing than a young lady who…"

"…Who obviously knows Mr. Smith well," Rose interrupted, hoping to stop an insult before it could be said. She wasn't entirely sure if racial slurs were considered appropriate in 1913, but she sure as heck didn't want to have to hear any. "Sometimes, Miss Redfern," Rose continued. "A maternal or familiar eye can be a better assessor than a clinical one."

Joan shot a glare toward Rose. "I appreciate that it's your first day on staff, Miss Tyler. So I will offer warning that it would be in your best interests to remind yourself of your conduct and the expectations of such moving forward."

Rose's mouth gaped in preparation to retort, and the look she could see in her peripheral from Romana gave her certainly encouraged such a retort, but instead she let out a breath and calmed herself. She dipped her head in apology. "Yes, of course. My apology, Ma'am."

Joan's look of fury remained on Rose for a long few seconds before she let her expression fall to a friendlier one. She shifted her attention back to John. "Mr. Smith. To be sure, I would recommend that you spend the remainder of the day in your quarters." She held up her finger when he looked to argue. "I insist, as your nurse, that you rest and recover."

"Yes," he finally agreed after a moment of silence. "I think you may be right."

"Good man," she teased him lightly. "I'll escort you to your quarters." Her eyes shifted to Martha. "I expect that Mr. Smith's quarters are properly tidied from his morning meal?"

"Indeed Ma'am," Martha answered with a light dip in her head.

Joan looked back to Rose and Romana. "I will return shortly. Please ensure that William remains calm in my absence."

Rose was half ready to facetiously curtsey, but instead cradled her hands in front of her and nodded obediently. "Of course." She maintained that position until Martha, Joan and John had left the room, and then she spun to Romana and let out a growl.

"I, as your _nurse_ ," she parroted petulantly. "Stupid cow."

Romana finally let her brows drop and let out a breath. "Well. I believe things might just get a little more complicated than the Doctor and I had originally expected."

"How do you mean?"

"Well," she muttered inaudibly with a frown as her eyes remained on the empty doorway. "It would appear that the Matron and John Smith may have developed a mutual affection for each other."

"What was that, Romana?"

She sook herself and offered Rose a put on smile. "Nothing, Rose. Nothing." She forced the smile to widen. "Let's see to the young lad, shall we? Make sure we don't end up with an epidemic on our hands and we end up with every child in this school vomiting at our feet."

"Can really stop it once it's started," Rose said with a shrug and a wince on her face. "Kids. Walking petri dishes, all of them."

"A quick trip to the TARDIS, and I can have the Doctor put together so mething we can put in their food." She gave Rose a flat look at the accusing stare she was giving her. "Choice is yours, Rose. We make a preemptive stike against it, or we end up cleaning it up." She folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot on the floor.

Rose pursed her lips and then looked down at her watch. "You've got a half hour."


	7. Questions

A/N: Three minichapters in one here. Had to sneak this in ... shhhhh ...

When I refer to the song of the TARDIS - and I will refer to it a couple of times in this story - then I'll let you know that I actually reference the "Doctor's Theme" from the Ninth/Tenth Doctor. I find that haunting and breathy voice to be what I think is a perfect representation of the TARDIS song... But, that's just me, of course. Feel free to pick your own song ...

Thank you once again for all of your reviews! I find them all to be very very inspirational.

A special message to Diosa Luna: No le importa al comentar en su lengua materna en absoluto. Creo que es maravilloso que usted comenta ! Le doy las gracias increíblemente para disfrutar de mi historia tanto que vas a la molestia de tener que traducir para su disfrute ! Yo no hablo español , así que espero que esto se tradujo bien para usted. ( Tuve que usar Google translate ) . Gracias y espero que sigas. (Oh I hope I got that translated okay! Have a good laugh at me if it didn't.)

I hope you enjoy this next part. Things are heating up a little!

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor was busying himself with a repair on K-9 when Romana burst in through the doors of the TARDIS. He looked up quickly from the mass of wires that were the innards of the robot dog with his brows high and his eyes wide.

"Romana! I thought you were at the school with Rose and Gallifrey."

"I was," she answered quickly. "But now I'm back."

"I can see that," he murmured distractedly as he dropped his head to look back at the circuit board in his hand. "Did you find early twentieth century Earth school a little too difficult? Perhaps I should've insisted on only a half day commitment until you were used to it."

"I find your facetiousness far more trying than the time I've spent at the school, Doctor," she grumbled indignantly.

"Then I believe my job to be done," he said with a grin, but without looking up from the circuit board. "So tell me, Romana. How are you enjoying the education system of Sol III?"

She rolled her eyes. "I do find their methods rather rudimentary and ineffective." He paused to let him snort, which he did. "And based on the deplorably ill-equipped medical station at that facility, I'm not incredibly surprised to see that their species has succumbed to as many illnesses as they have."

"Oh, they are still a very young planet, my dear Romana," he shot back with amusement. "Give them time and they will show advancements in both medicine and technology that will embarrass even Gallifrey in how fast they managed to achieve them."

"I find that highly unlikely," she huffed with a roll of her eyes. "And as those advancements have not yet been achieved, Rose and I need to ask for your assistance in ensuring that neither of us have to fall victim to any of these _illnesses_ that befall this time period."

He nodded and wiped his hands on the ends of his scarf as he stood up from his crouch on the floor. "I can prepare some inoculations, although both you and Rose are quite adequately protected. Rose's time has already made substantial breakthroughs in medicine and they immunise their offspring from infancy against the more serious illnesses."

"Is that so?"

"It is very _so_."

She let a brow arch over her left eye. "Did you know that your son suffers from colds?"

The Doctor sniffed and bit at the inside of his cheek before he responded. When he did it was with a shrug. "Well. I would assume he does. Earth hasn't yet found an adequate effective means of preventative medicine for the common cold."

"Well, Gallifreyan medicine has, and I will expect you to ensure that that brilliant child will not have to suffer such a …" She looked quite disgusted. "Such a _primitive_ illness ever again."

"I will speak to his mother," he said with a snort. He was rewarded with a challenging glare. "No? Is that unacceptable to you? Well then. Let me rephrase that. I will strongly encourage – as the voice of his father – that he be protected against those … _primitive_ … illnesses. As you call them." He walked to the console of his ship and tapped his fingers on the top of it. "Now. I expect you aren't here just to tell me to cure Gallifrey of the common cold."

"Indeed no," she answered with a hard sigh as she looked at a distorted image of him through the glass cylinder of the rotor. "We have encountered a potential problem."

"You say that like it never happens."

She smiled at that. "It certainly makes for interesting travels." Her smile fell. "But a rampant alien invasion or planet shattering impending disaster doesn't come close to the problem we may be looking at."

The piqued the Doctor's attention. "Oh? And just what could be worse than an event that could destroy a planet?"

"A woman scorned."

That gave the Doctor pause. He looked through the column and then found himself tilting into a lean to look around it at her. "Excuse me?"

"John Smith appears to have found affections from a human woman."

He blanched. "Oh by Rassilon's crest no," he breathed slowly. His eyes were wide and his brows high as his mouth opened up to a gape of shock. "Are you very sure about this?"

"I may not have been raised in a society of love and romance, Doctor," she growled. "But I can certainly recognise the signs of mutual attraction between couples. Especially in a primitive species such as the Human race – where they may as well walk around with hearts in their eyes…" she paused. "That is the correct descriptive, isn't it?"

"Have you been watching the Earth channels in the media room, Romana?" He muttered with his brows high. "More specifically the cartoon channel?"

Romana's eyes widened with guilt, but the expression lasted only a brief moment before it fell into annoyance. "I admit to no such activity. Animated programming is for simple minded children, not ladies of Time."

"Lying about it appears to be quite acceptable, however."

She smiled, but said nothing further on the topic. "Can we please head back to the topic of the Human version of yourself who is about to break the hearts of both the woman he loves and his beloved child?"

"And his own," he added darkly. "Let's not forget what it will do to his Timelord self when he reverts back."

"His heartbreak is his own doing," she growled in response.

"And will also be his undoing," the Doctor snapped back. He punched at the left side of his chest. "And I tell you, Romana, that I won't allow myself to be undone in _that_ manner."

"Then you had better think of something," she warned. "Because if this woman truly winds her way into your human heart, then you won't even want to turn back."

"We both know that I do," the Doctor growled.

"And look at what you'd become."

"We're here to fix that," he said darkly.

"Fix _you_ , of course. Easily done I suspect," she charged. "But what about Rose and Gallifrey? Do we know how they end up? Will their hearts be so easily mended?"

"Romana." He took two long strides to loom over top of her. "I'm the Doctor," he snarled.

Romana waited for him to expand on that. She did. She held her ground underneath his heated glare and waited for him to say something else – anything else – that would make his words make sense. None came however, which meant that if she pushed it, he was only going to end up giving her the silent treatment or become belligerent for the next decade or so.

She simply let out a sigh, dropped her head and gave it a shake. "I need to get back and assist Rose."

"I'll see you when you return." He drummed his fingers on the console. He cleared his throat and spoke in a small, yet hopeful voice. "Will Rose and Gallifrey return with you – or are they intending on staying at the school tonight?"

Romana gave a knowing and cheeky smile. "Is that your way of inviting them both to the TARDIS for supper?"

He didn't look at her, instead keeping his eyes on the time rotor column. "Yes. You see, I feel it would be a good idea for me to help young Gallifrey with his studies." He rubbed at his chin. "Tell them to come by the TARDIS tonight."

Romana didn't answer beyond giving him a smile and a nod of her head. He maintained his smile as he watched her leave and waited until the TARDIS doors closed behind her before he let that smile falter. With urgency, he jogged to the console and input a series of commands to open the monitor. On his command the TARDIS records replayed the conversation held between his two selves on a desolate rocky planet three million light years from his current location. He leaned down on an elbow and frowned a tight knit of his brows as he analysed his future self's condition and his incoherent, slurred words.

He didn't learn anything new from replaying it for the fiftieth time. There was nothing missed. He couldn't see anything more than he did every other time. The Doctor was at a complete loss to understand just what it was that made his future self turn himself human in the first place.

He drew his palm down the length of his face and let out a breath as he stepped back and flopped back into a seat. He slouched into it heavily and turned his attention to his basically disembowled robot dog. "I guess there's only one thing to do, K-9." He scratched at his head. "Well. Two. But waiting around for something to happen isn't really my strong suit."

He huffed and hauled himself from the chair, and then picked up the circuit board he'd pulled from K-9's belly. "Let me put you back together, boy, and perhaps we can see what we can do about finding his TARDIS. I'm sure she'll have the answers I'm looking for."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Lunch time at Farrington. One hour of freedom from prying eyes and strict teachers. One hour where he could easily slip outside unnoticed. One very short hour to get outside and maybe follow that strange maid he'd met earlier that morning.

…Because he knew she had to be up to something. Of course she was. Why else would an obviously well educated woman like her send herself back in time to work as a maid if not to chase down and capture the one code-named Time Child?

Well. It wasn't going to work because he was going to stop her. No one was going to take him from his mother. No one!

He patted his pocket to make sure that he still had his little fistful of firecrackers that he took from the TARDIS. They were there, all seven of them, and he had a lighter in the other pocket. Fully armed, he was ready to hunt.

He bit at his lip as he snuck carefully through the thicket surrounding the school and headed toward the maid's quarters. He knew the path and the darkest places to hide. He'd done some reconnaissance during morning recess and spent a few moments analysing the area, and his eidetic mind had drawn up an entire schematic of the area. He could see even the most subtle of changes, right down to the freshly disturbed earth underneath one of the barberry trees beside the outhouse, no doubt from a badger – if the small thatch of black and white hairs plastered to the base of the barberry was any indication.

His eyes shifted up to the small row of bicycles leaned up against the mossy bricked wall. He counted off five and the corner of his mouth lifted into a smile. There were six of them there this morning.

With a grin, he pulled his mother's iphone from his back pocket and shielded himself in the shadows as he tapped in a series of commands inside an app he had hidden inside an innocuous looking little folder simply titled "Lifestyle." The app was on a second swipe from the main folder screen. His mum was unlikely to find it – he'd made sure that the preceding page was only half-filled with icons so she wouldn't think to keep scrolling – which was a good thing, really. It took quite a bit of fiddling around to get the programming just right. Initially he'd struggled with satellite hookup and navigating his way around various security protocols as he played leapfrog between signals to lock on to the strongest possible GPS signal feed. But now he had it right. He had it working perfectly – accurate to within a five metre radius.

Which would've great if he was in a timezone that had satellites and cellphone towers. When he couldn't get a signal, Gallifrey groaned the pressed the top edge of the cellphone into his forehead.

"Now what am I supposed to do," he cursed under his breath. "Trust us to end up in the bloody dark ages."

His foot tapped on the ground as he thought hard to try and solve his quandary. He wanted to know where that bike was, because there was a fair chance that it had the butt of that maid planted firmly on its seat.

 _Think think think, Gallifrey Tyler,_ he chided himself. _What would your dad do? What would he do, what would he use to…?_

His breath hitched in deep within his chest as a voice tickled at the very back of his mind. He blinked quickly several times and let the voice at the back of his mind weave its way through to the very centre of his forehead. He could feel a shift of something curling around the space between his eyes and exhaled a long breath as the phantom sensation became a haunting song inside his mind. It was a voice, breathy and ethereal, a tune hummed through an open mouth.

His face broke out into a toothy, manic grin. "Well. Hello _Auntie_ TARDIS," he said with a chuckle. "Are you feeling a little bored?"

He looked back down at the top left hand corner that had previously read _no signal_. Now, it displayed the word _TARDIS_ and showed a full five bars of strength.

"You clever girl," he muttered to himself as he activated the app navigation software and held his breath in hope that it'd work. "C'mon. Please work. I'm running out of time here and if I'm late back, mum'll kill me."

He bit at his thumbnail as he let his eyes slide upward to ensure he hadn't been seen, and let the iPhone work its magic to lock on the signal. His thumbnail was still in between his teeth as he looked at the underneath of each of the bike seats and saw the tiny red indicator lights that showed connection between his iPhone and the five bikes.

The signal for the sixth one flashed up on the face of his phone.

"Bingo," he sang with a victorious dance in his shoulders as he hauled his satchel up onto his shoulder. "Okay, Martha, let's see who you really are, then."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Martha Jones moaned with discomfort as she dismounted her bicycle and straightened her skirts. While she wasn't typically opposed to climbing atop a bicycle and spending the afternoon on a trail or an hour doing an intense spin class, she certainly had a few complaints about the comfortability of the bicycle seats of 1913. More wood than cushion, she was guaranteed an awkwardly placed bruise or two or five after riding on the unpaved country roads.

Trying not to dwell on the matter too much, Martha rested the bike up against a tree and turned to walk toward an old disused barn a few metres from where she had dismounted. The bike wasn't set in an entirely stable manner, and so she winced as it fell with a loud clamour to the rocky ground.

"Serve you right," she hissed at it with a petulant fold of her arms across her chest. "And just because, I'm going to leave you there to think about how uncomfortable you are." She turned and lifted her head in a deliberately aristocratic sniff. "I should say that you are unworthy of my backside."

As soon as he lips and tongue sounded out that comment, Martha dropped her head and chuckled at herself. She pressed the flat of her palm against the thick wooden door of the barn and pushed it open just enough that she curled around the door and padded into the dusty darkness that lay within.

Martha swiped the air in front of her in a rather vain attempt to clear the air of the swirling dusts that her sudden presence had shifted up. She coughed into her fist to clear her throat of dust and made sure to take a cautious look around before she strode into the darkest corner of the barn where the TARDIS was seated quietly in wait for her Timelord.

She shuddered and curled up her nose at a musty thin tendril of brisk cold that curled around her arms. A damp breeze. Damp and cold. Damp and cold and musty. She was used to it, though, in this barn. There were cracks and holes spread throughout the aged and rotting walls. Even if she spent an entire day with a caulking gun, a pile of lumber, hammer and nails, she doubted that she'd ever be able to rid it of that blasted cold.

She shivered and rubbed at her arms, tightening the thin crocheted shawl around her shoulders in an attempt to get some form of warmth. She knew she wouldn't get any relief from the TARDIS. The ship had been powered down for well over a month now. She was as damp and musty and cold as the inside of the barn.

"Oh," she breathed with her usual daily complaint of the lack of technology in this era. "What I wouldn't give for a hot bubble bath, a nice bottle of unwooded chardonnay and the dulcet tones of Usher to wash away this nightmare."

"You think you're in a nightmare now," a dark voice purred hotly out of the darkness. "You just wait until I'm through with you."


	8. The Oncoming Rainstorm

A/N: Just a short one to finish up my day. I hope you enjoy it..

~~oooOOOooo~~

 _"_ _Oh," she breathed with her usual daily complaint of the lack of technology in this era. "What I wouldn't give for a hot bubble bath, a nice bottle of unwooded chardonnay and the dulcet tones of Usher to wash away this nightmare."_

 _"_ _You think you're in a nightmare now," a dark voice purred hotly out of the darkness. "You just wait until I'm through with you."_

Martha gave a start at the voice and its icy slap against her ears. Her heart seemed to seize for the tiniest of moments and while she didn't think she was entirely able to do so, she turned slowly on her heel to narrow her eyes into the darkened shadowed corner of the room behind her.

"Who g-goes there," she stammered with forced courage. "I w-warn you. I'm not going to go easy."

A giggle bounced in from the shadows and seemed to dance around her in a circle before it took off and swirled up into the rafters like a flock. The thundering of her heart in her chest was like the flapping of a hundred wings, and Martha had to battle to remain standing.

"Go back to your own time," the darkened voice warned. "There's nothing for you here …" The voice laughed dangerously. "Nothing _safe_ anyway."

Terrifying darkness aside, the voice uttering not-so-niceties in her direction did seem to have a rather youthful quality to it, and Martha found herself wondering if it belonged to the little brown-haired boy from Farrington.

"Is that you," she called out into the darkness; into the darkened corner that she thought for sure the voice had originated from. "Gallifrey," she tried. "Gallifrey Tyler. The little boy from the school?"

"Gallifrey who," the voice called out from her right side, which made Martha bite back a yelp and spin. "There's no _Gallifrey_ here, just your average nightmare child."

"I've no doubt about that," she managed around a hard swallow. With her head flicking side to side in search of something, _anything,_ that would give her a definite idea of where the little sneak was hiding, she took a pair of strides backward. "I can see you getting top billing in my next nightmare or two."

There was a skittering sound to her right, and Martha backed off in the other direction. A spark, a flash and a loud pop, and the smell of cordite wove itself around her neck up into her nose. "What the…?" she stumbled against something soft and spun with a gasping inhale. "Who?"

A small face appeared out of the darkness, its eyes black and furious, its lips curled into a dangerous smile.

"Boo," it breathed in little more than a whispered sound.

It was enough to have her shriek with surprise and fall down heavily onto her ass in the dusty, dirty, straw covered floor of the barn. She put both hands behind her and shuffled back slowly as the figure loomed over top of her.

"You," he warned so darkly that it was practically suffocating. "You will leave Rose and Gallifrey Tyler alone. Do you hear me?"

Martha looked up at the boy with actual fear. While she was perfectly certain that she had what it took to kick his little butt from here to Antarctica, she wasn't exactly certain if she could find it within her to actually be able to move. It was as though his piercing stare was like a thousand pins holding her in place, she was unable to move in any way at all.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she peeped as her elbows collapsed from underneath her and she stumbled backward just a little.

The little figure took the opportunity to loom over her just that little bit more. His voice dropped an octave as well as a few decibels to his another warning. "Head back to your own time," he snarled. "And tell whoever sent you that Rose Tyler and her son are protected."

"Rose Tyler," she panted in response, recognition of the name dawning far later than it really should've. "As in the _Doctor's_ Rose Tyler?"

At those words the figure leapt. Within a beat of her heart, the figure was over top of her, his feet either side of her waist, and his hands clutched tightly at the bib of her white apron. He leaned over her with enough of a stoop to practically have his nose against hers. "Whoever you are," he snarled. "Leave. Them. Alone."

It was the spray of spittle against her face that finally did her in. With the crisp cool of his breath on her face and the spittle of his hiss spraying on her eye, Martha finally let out a shriek and brought her hands up to cover her eyes.

"Please," she begged. "Leave me alone, you don't understand. I would never hurt…"

A slow clapping sound started from the doorway of the barn. It was a sharp and almost hollow sound that quickly seemed to escalate into applause as the sound echoed off the aged wooden struts and walls of the almost dilapidated barn.

Marth stopped writhing, but she kept her hands over her face, choosing to peer through the gaps between her fingers, where she knew she could immediately shield herself if it got too much. She watched the boy who was crowded over her, however, as he slowly turned his attention toward the door. The dark look of threat in his eyes only darkened further as the grip of his hands tightened on her bib.

The incredibly slow movement that he made, and the fury in his eyes absolutely terrified of her, and for not the first time in her life she regretted every Stephen King novel she'd ever read for the images she was getting from the demon spawn still looming over her.

"Who's there," he asked inside an unearthly snarl.

The clapping didn't stop. It only seemed to increase in volume until it was able to practically stab at the heartbeats of both Gallifrey and Martha with every strike of skin on skin from the darkness. Two red glowing lights cut through the darkness like eyes of a demon, and even Gallifrey let out a yelp.

He shifted, but then tripped over Martha's hip, landing on his shoulder at her side. At the sound of a mechanical whir, he scuffled his back along the dirt in escape with his hearts battling for best position inside his throat. He panted with fear and panic.

"Go away," he spat into the darkness. "Leave me alone."

" _Affirmative, Young Master._ "

Gallifrey's entire expression fell. "Hold on. What?"

It was the brightest colours of the scarf that became visible first through the dim light streaming through the cracks in the wood. There was an amused _tsk tsk_ sound and then the toothy smile and wide sparkling eyes of the Fourth Doctor appeared out of the darkness.

"Bravo, my boy," he boomed inside a laugh as he swished the scarf aside to crouch beside Gallifrey. "I haven't seen a performance quite like that since MacBeth on Drury Lane 1768." He held out his hand to help the boy to his feet. "David Garrick gave a performance that is – to this day – unmatched by any other. Quite a fine fellow, David. Perhaps I can take you to meet him one day. I'm sure he can give you some pointers you can apply to your next little performance."

Gallifrey's face fell into an expression of embarrassed disappointment. "Are you makin' fun of me, Dad?"

"Absolutely not," he answered incredulously. "I'm applauding you. That was a wonderful performance, and if I didn't know that you were really a magnificent and kind hearted young man, I would honestly have believed that you were about to send this fair young maiden to her maker."

His eyes shot wide and he actually stomped his foot on the floor and clenched his fists at his side. He held back a cough at the swirling dusts he created and creased his little face into a contorted expression of frustration. "I _was_ going to do it." He thrust a finger in Martha's direction. "She's a threat to mum. She was sent here from the future to try and take me away from her."

The Doctor held an arm across his belly and rubbed his chin with his hand in a gesture that suggested he was seriously considering the young lad's words. "Is that so?"

"It is," Gallifrey insisted.

"It's really not," Martha muttered as she finally shuffled a little in a failed attempt at standing up. "I honestly have no idea what he's talking about."

The Doctor dropped his hand to offer Martha assistance and held at hers firmly as she took it. "He does seem quite insistent."

Martha roughly dropped his hand and brushed herself off as she glared toward Gallifrey, who had by now adopted a petulant slouch with his arms folded across his chest. "I think he's been watching a few too many Sci-fi movies, that one."

"Sci-fi, you say?"

Gallifrey opened his arms and dipped his head into his shoulders as his eyes widened to the Doctor. "See what I mean?"

"Oh I see," he muttered thoughtfully in a quiet tone that suggested he was willing to believe the young lad. "Yes. Yes. I do believe you may be right."

Marth let out a grunt and took a step backward. She pointed her finger between them both. "Insane. Both of you."

"Oh," the Doctor half cheered as his face lit up with a grin that widened his eyes impossibly. "Indeed you're right about that, my dear. As insane as they come … or so they say, anyway."

"Dad!"

"Oh Gallifrey," The Doctor moaned with a shake of his head. "Do settle down. While I'm sure you're right about this young lady being here at least a century out of her time, I don't believe she's here for any particularly nefarious reasons." He smiled toward Martha who looked at him with surprise. "Are you?"

"I swear to you I'm here for a much different reason."

"Which is?"

She frowned a wince of apology. "I really can't say."

"I see," The Doctor answered quietly.

Gallifrey spun on Martha and clenched his fists at his side once more. "And _why_ can't you say? Because you know I'm onto you?" He stalked a pair of strides toward her, and then peeped when the Doctor's hand clamped down on his shoulder and pulled him backward. "Leave me and my mum alone."

"Gallifrey, please." He pulled a white bag from his jacket pocket and held it out to Martha. "Would you like a Jelly Baby?"

"Would I like a _what_?"

"A Jelly Baby," he repeated as he popped one into his mouth and held the package down to his son. "It's a sweet that I'm quite sure I've offered to you more than once since we've met."

Martha gave him a confused and suspicious look. "Excuse me?"

"How long have we travelled together now, months, years?" He held the bag up for her again. "I would say that we've shared from the same bag of Jelly Babies quite a few times on our adventures." He frowned as he looked at the bag. "I can't imagine that I'd ever be without them. These sweets have gotten me out of some rather unpleasant situations more than once."

Martha raised her hands and took a few steps backward. "I really don't know what you're talking about, and if I'm being really honest I'm going to say that you need to leave right now and unleash demon boy back on me. He was less scary than you're being right now."

Gallifrey looked confused, but if his mum had taught him anything about his father it was to always trust him – even if he seemed to be tilting quite dangerously over the rails. "What are you getting at, Dad?"

He let out a breath and directed the child's attention to a spot just beyond Martha's shoulder. "I think that this young lady is my current travelling companion."

Gallifrey's mouth gaped to see the Darkened TARDIS looming quietly behind the woman. "Oh. My. It's her…" His eyes were wide as he looked back to the Doctor. "It's the TARDIS."

"The older version," he said with a smile and a quick flick of his brows. "And she's still beautiful – aren't you old girl?"

Gallifrey cautiously approached the TARDIS and stroked at her doors. "But she's so quiet. What's wrong with her?" He looked back at the Doctor with worry. "Is she sick?"

"That's a very good question."

Martha felt a shudder of worry course through her as she looked between the Doctor and the child. "Who. Who are you?"

"Oh," the Doctor breathed quickly as he wiped his hand on the leg of his pants and then held it out in greeting. "I suppose I should introduce myself to you. While we've obviously met, we actually haven't as yet."

Her eyes widened and she coughed in disbelief. "What?"

"I'm the Doctor, and you are?"


	9. Answers

Dunno what happened there ... let's try this again.

~~oooOOOooo~~

"I'm the Doctor. And you are?"

Martha blinked rapidly for a couple of minutes as she let her mind process the words. That mind of hers then told her to cough out a sound of incredulity, slouch somewhat disgustedly to one side and express her disbelief.

" _The_ Doctor? Oh, I don't think so."

His beaming grin fell somewhat. "But I _am_ ," he replied with urging.

Martha screwed up her nose, folded her arms across her chest and shook her head. "No. I _know_ the Doctor. And you…" She eyed him up and down so disparagingly that he subconsciously pulled his jacket closed across his chest. "And you're definitely not him."

"Lemme guess," Gallifrey offered with a smirk. "He hasn't explained regenerations to you yet?" He then thumbed to the TARDIS doors and without letting her answer his question, he posed another one. "Any chance of letting us inside?"

Martha looked at the child with hooded eyes of suspicion. "Hasn't explained _what_? And no. You can't go in."

"Oh, but please," Gallifrey begged as he clasped his hands together under his chin repeated the word several more times. "I've heard so much about this incarnation of her. I _have_ to see her." He turned back and pressed his hands into the doors. "Let me say hello to Auntie TARDIS," he turned his head back to give her the most solemn, innocent, needy, desperate, look that would put any cute and adorable kitten or puppy to shame. "Please?"

Martha let a brow flick and watched as Gallifrey's bottom lip slowly slid outward in a protrusion that stuck out further than the tip of his nose. "No," she answered flatly.

He let his eyes water just slightly. "But…"

"I'm immune to cute, just so you know."

Martha might not have been particularly swayed by Gallifrey's act, but the Doctor most certainly was. He hurriedly petted his pockets and withdrew his TARDIS key from his pocket. "Of course you can, Gallifrey. Of course." He half sprinted to the doors to the old blue box and actually stumbled inserting the key into the lock. "Oh sorry old girl," he muttered apologetically as the key slid and lightly scratched the plate surrounding the keyhole.

Martha shot forward and pressed herself against the door in an attempt to stop him. "Wait! You can't go in there. You shouldn't. It's not…" She yelped as the Doctor finally managed to get the key in the lock and spun the tumbler, and the door opened behind her.

The Doctor made a show of looking at the sign on the door before he crossed the threshold of the ship and dropped his hand to offer assistance to help her to her feet. "I really should change that sign, shouldn't I?" He muttered with a wink and a one-sided grin. " _Pull to Open_ , really. Everyone knows that TARDIS doors swing inward."

"Most entry doors do," Gallifrey added with a shrug as his hands slid into his trouser pockets and he cautiously stepped inside the darkened TARDIS console room. "Or is that just another one of those parallel dimension abnormalities that exist between here and _there_?"

"Oh I believe that to be the multiversal norm, young Gallifrey." He flicked his hand again toward where Martha still lay propped up on her back on the floor of the TARDIS. "Well? Are you going to lay about all day, or are you going to take the hand of a gentleman who wants to help you to your feet?"

Martha honestly wanted to lever a hand across the cheek of the man in front of her, but made do with taking his hand and ensuring that he took the full brunt of her weight as she awkwardly rose up to a stand. She then shook off his hand and brushed off her skirt. "Who are you," she seethed through her teeth as she stepped around a coral strut to move deeper into the TARDIS console room.

"I'm the Doctor," he answered again, only this time with a rather flat tone in his voice. That flatness did shift to worry as he took a look around the interior of the TARDIS console room. "Well. It looks like you've been stripped right down to your natural state, old girl. I wonder just why, exactly, I did that?"

"So she's nekkid," Gallifrey teased with a cheeky grin. "Does this mean I should be walking around with my hands over my eyes?" He stuck his head forward and held his palm across his eyes. This only lasted a moment as he stubbed his toe into the grating of the floor and staggered against tripping and falling on his face. "Nope," he squeaked as he collided with the centre console. "Not a good idea that."

The Doctor pulled his jacket from off his shoulders and draped it over a coral strut as he moved toward the console. "K-9," he called. "Can you please do an analysis on her circuits and give me a report of any system failures and damage." He flicked at a couple of levers that did nothing except make an annoying click. "I want to know why she seems to be down to critical systems only."

K-9 rolled to his side. "Affirmative, Master."

Martha's voice growled from his side. "If you were _really_ the Doctor, then you'd know why she was in this state, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," he muttered absently as he pulled the monitor across the console and tapped a couple of times at the dead screen I front of him. "If only I was a lot of things…"

"So you're saying that you're not the Doctor, then," she challenged.

"Well," he answered distractedly. "The answer to that really does depend on the context in which you're querying, doesn't it?" He winked at Gallifrey, who had begun to climb himself up onto the console. "Isn't that right?"

"Absolutely," Gallifrey chirped as he looped an arm around the rotor column and settled his little butt on the console top. He wriggled for comfort and basically hugged the column as he watched the Doctor work across the panel in front of him. "There are specific question parameters that have to be added to a question posed to a Timelord about his identity if you wish to have your question answered as precisely as possible."

" _What_?" she huffed in frustration. She then held up her hand and shook her head. "You know what? No." She suddenly yanked up her skirt and pulled a small gun from a satin garter around her thigh. He held it in the direction of the Doctor and flicked off the safety. "Right. I'm tired of your cryptic little game. So I'm going to ask you again – for the last time – who. Are. You?"

Gallifrey peeped and ducked his head under his arm to peer big brown eyes over the very top of it. The Doctor, however, looked toward the gun with very tired eyes.

"Do put that away," he droned with a huff. "If you accidentally discharge that weapon in this room and damage any part of the TARDIS I'll be very angry with you."

"And somehow," she sang facetiously. "That's an outcome that really doesn't bother me at all."

Gallifrey leaned down a little and lowered his voice to a whisper. "And if she shoots you or me, Dad?"

He lifted his eyes to look into those of his child. He gently pinched Gallifrey's chin between his thumb and the crook of his finger. "She won't." He increased the volume of his voice and ground out a firm: "Will you?"

Martha snorted. "After what I've had to go through over these past few weeks, I really wouldn't put it past me. I'm worn out. I'm insulted. I want nothing more than to put on a pair of jeans and a pair of runners, watch some TV or listen to some music. I want to sleep in a bed that isn't lumpy and smell of dust and mould. I want to just sleep." She sniffed a wet sniff and then snorted. "Or how about ride a bike that doesn't roll off to smoke a cigarette when I get off it?"

The Doctor turned around and pressed his backside into the console edge. He held both hands out in front of him and lightly patted the air in an attempt to calm her. "Dear, I understand your frustration," he ventured. "But waving a gun around like you are and making threats is never a practice that ends particularly well."

Her eyes watered from the burn of frustration in her chest. She poked the gun in the air in front of her a couple of times and then let it fall to the grating at her feet. "Please," she whispered in defeat. "Tell me who you are and what you want from me."

"I'm the Doctor," he answered slowly. He watched her drop her head and let out a breath and picked up his voice a little. "Granted, I'm not wearing the face that you're familiar with – in fact I'm his fourth incarnation – I assure you that I _am_ the Doctor. I'm not here to hurt or threaten you at all." He dared take a stride toward her but paused when she flinched. "I can't ask you to trust me, but please do believe me when I tell you that I'm here at my own request."

Martha frowned in confusion. Her voice was barely a whisper. "What?"

"Wibbly wobbly timey wimey .. stuff," Gallifrey recited slowly with a roll of his eyes and a circling of his finger in front of him.

The Doctor turned sharply. "Wibbly wobbly what?" He looked mortified. "What has your mother been _teaching_ you, Gal?"

"She's been teachin' me the best she can without much to go on," Gallifrey answered with a shrug.

"But how and more importantly .. _why…_?"

"Oh, but think about it, Dad. Time. It's all wibbly wobbly and all over the place." He grinned and scuffled his butt on the console to sit directly in front of the Doctor. He leaned forward excitedly between the part of his knobbly little knees. "Like have you ever and put a non-newtonian fluid – cornstarch and water for example - on a stretched plastic film over the cone of a speaker and just cranked up that sound?" He fist pumped the air as though to add dramatics to what he was saying. "It's an ectoplasmic dance that's all wibbly and wobbly and jumpy that reacts to the vibrations and waves to make sound .. _visible_." He nodded his head and smiled a lazy grin. "Pretty cool, really."

"Yes, I'm sure it is," the Doctor said slowly. "But what that has to do with time being all _wibbly wobbly_ I'm still wondering."

"The progression of time is not as strict as you boring old Timelords make it out to be," he said with an indignant roll of his eyes.

"Mind yourself, Gallifrey," The Doctor chided. "There are two hearts beating inside your chest, remember that."

Gallifrey put his hands on the Doctor's shoulders and stared quite seriously into his eyes as though ready to impart the greatest secret in the universe. "Okay. It's like this. It's assumed that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, yeah?"

"Uh-huh?"

"But, _actually._ When you look at it from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it behaves much like that big old blob of corn starch and water on the plastic film, all wibbly and wobbly and bouncy as it hurries to react to the ripples caused by left or right turns, good decisions, bad decisions." he bounced both hands in front of him and slowly drew it to a side to side wave before he stopped them to press them lightly into the console between his legs. "And then it all settles down, comes around full circle realigns itself – fixed point to fixed point." He kept his palms pressed down into the console and looked into the Doctor's eyes with hopeful anticipation. "Know what I mean?"

The Doctor stared at the child for a long moment in silence. It was long enough that young Gallifrey started to worry that he was mistaken and that his hypothesis needed some work. Before he could slouch, however, the Doctor thrust his arms forward to clutch at the sides of his face. "You. Are. _Brilliant_!" He cheered in a manner far more like his Tenth version than his current incarnation. He wore a grin of absolute pride as he tugged Gallifrey into him to hold him against his chest. "You've summed up an entire Academy textbook in just one …" He chuckled with disbelief. " _Wibbly wobbly_ paragraph. I am proud of you. So _very_ proud."

Gallifrey beamed a smile of absolute thrill and looked over the Doctor's shoulder to Martha, who was looking far less threatened and far more stunned than she had several minutes ago. "He's _proud_ of me. My Dad." He sniffed and grinned even wider. "All my life. That's all I ever wanted."

The Doctor pulled back from Gallifrey and left one hand cupped on the back of his head. "I'm always going to be proud of you. Don't ever forget that." He winked at Gallifrey's bouncing giggle. "And I think I might just have to steal that analogy of yours sometime in the future."

"Yours or mine," Gallifrey teased.

"We'll just have to see, won't we my boy," he cheered as he flicked up a switch and the entire TARDIS console lit up brightly. "He said l _et there be light_ and there was light." Without much more fanfare, he began to dance around the console, flicking up switches and twisting dials. All the while with K-9 on his heels and hauling the monitor along with him.

"Okay," Martha finally breathed from the mid-point between the console and the door. "Him," she said as she pointed toward Gallifrey. "I could believe would be the Doctor. Past Doctor. Doctor as a kid."

Gallifrey grinned a wide, manic, toothy grin and giggled through that grin. "Yep!"

"You, however," she pointed at the Doctor. "I really can't see it."

"Well, that's because you aren't Gallifreyan." He raised his head. "Or have no imagination that allows suspension of belief," he looked around the central column at her. "Definitely not a fan of Science fiction. Which really is a shame as it is much less likely to commit homicide on one's brain like the daily programming otherwise referred to as a _Soap_." He shrugged and looked back down at the console. "And why is it called a _soap_ , then; because it is hardly a cleansing experience…"

Martha slouched and let out a sigh. "Okay. I'm sold." She stiffened again and one side of her mouth picked up in a wince. "Maybe no. Perhaps." She swayed uncomfortably side to side as if undecided whether or not to bolt. "Oh I don't know." She held at her head. "I think I'm having a neural implosion."

"Regenerations," the Doctor cut in. "Timelords have twelve of them." He kept his eyes on the monitor as it scrolled system data at him. "Which means we have thirteen lives. That's thirteen different bodies. I'm number four."

Martha frowned. She inhaled a very deep breath, held onto it, and then exhaled. "Which would then make _my_ Doctor…"

"I have no idea," he said with a shrug. "I didn't ask him."

"But didn't you just say that you were _him_?"

"Yes I did," he answered in a very matter of fact tone. "And I am here because I asked me to be. Oh I'm out of my time a little bit – or a lot – and quite frankly in danger of upsetting timelines by actually crossing into my own timeline, or really am I? I'm not exactly _me_ right now, am I? Human and all that." He frowned as he thought about it. "But I did assure me that I saw me here in this timeline so my presence is quite mandatory if fixed points are to remain firmly in place."

Martha's gums flapped rather like a fish out of water as she battled to make sense of it.

"Just remember, Martha," Gallifrey sang with a cheeky wink as he swung his legs backward and forward from the edge of the console. "Wibbly Wobbly Time Wimey."

She whimpered lightly without taking her eyes off the man still babbling at the console. "And how is that supposed to make it make sense?"

"It doesn't," he said with a shrug as he slid off the console and thrust his hands into his pockets and began a very wary approach of her. "But have you ever known my dad to actually _make_ any sense?" He scratched at his cheek. "I mean when he gets on a babble? Because mum said she could lose him when he got on a real good one." His hand found his pocket again and he kicked his toe into the dirt at his feet. "And then she says I'm just as bad, but she seems to get what I'm trying to say well enough. Well. Unless I get on one of those…" He made quotation marks with his fingers. "Sciencey babbles. Then she can lose me. But mostly not. She's pretty clever, my mum."

"Uh," Martha responded with a gape in her lips. "I am sure that she must be."

He continued to scuff his toe in the dirt as he moved toward her. "And. I have to say. Well. Um…" He rubbed at the back of his head and looked up at her with the sheepiest of sheepish expressions on his face. "So I. You know. About all that Oncoming Storm stuff…"

"Oncoming _Storm_ ," the Doctor bellowed with a laugh. "Oh, my dear boy. That was a thunderclap at best."

Gallifrey looked somewhat hurt by that. "Well. Okay. So it might not have been fire and brimstone and the four horses of the apocalypse, but gimme a break. I'm only eight, you know."

"Oh you scared me well enough." Martha grinned into her hand and then scruffed at his hair with her nails. "and I expect with a bit of practice you'll only get more terrifying – which is a rather terrifying thought." She actually laughed a little when he dipped his head and grinned a stupid grin of pleasure at her scratching at his head. She half expected him to moan and kick a leg like a little puppy.

The Doctor raised a brow at the somewhat odd reaction of his child to a head scruffing, but chose not to comment on it. He merely shook his head and looked to Martha – who was holding back hysterics at the kid. "I wonder if you can settle a rather annoying quandary of mine – I'm sorry, what is your name?"

She looked up with wide eyes of question and took her fingers from Gallifrey's head to clasp her hands in front of her. She sniffed a chuckle when Gallifrey let out a disappointed sound. "I'm Martha," she answered finally. "Martha Jones. I'm a doctoral student in London – early twenty-first century." She exhaled and set her hands on the console to stand beside the Doctor. "I've been travelling with the Doctor, well, you, for about five months."

"Well, Martha Jones. It's a pleasure to meet you – again –or for the first time." He winked and was happy to see her drop her head in amusement. "Are you able to shed some light on just why my older self turned himself human and left you playing babysitter for him?"

She shrugged and let out a breath. "Not too much, I'm afraid. I can only tell you what he told me, which wasn't a lot."

The Doctor looked surprised by that. "Since when didn't I thoroughly explain my magnificent plan?"

"Since you were too eager to get to it," she answered softly. She kept her eyes on the central column. "He told me to trust him, to look after him, and that everything would be okay." She winced in recollection. "And then he put this thing on his head and…" She shuddered. "He screamed. My God, he screamed, and there was nothing I could do."

He put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a supportive squeeze. "He changed species, Martha. It isn't going to be a euphoric experience."

She kept her head low, but twisted it to look up at him. "But did it have to be _that_ painful?"

"Would it make you feel better about it if I said it could," he queried. "And yet he put himself through that anyway?"

"I guess not."

"So why'd he do it?"

Martha pursed her lips and reached up to flick on the monitor. The Tenth Doctor's face appeared, stilled on the screen. "This is the message that he left me. Maybe you can get the answers you need by watching it." She huffed. "I've seen it enough, already. I know it by rote."

The Doctor quickly nodded and moved to the control panel for the monitor. "Thank you, Martha. I appreciate your help."

The thumbed to the door and winced. "I'm going to wait for you outside," she said painfully. "I don't know if I can watch it again." She looked down as a small hand found hers. She looked down to see sparkling brown eyes looking up at her. "What…?"

"I don't think I need to see it, either," he said with a smile and a wink as he tugged her hand to lead her to the door. "The first time I see my dad. I want it to be _him_ , not an image on a screen. I've already seen enough of those on mum's phone camera."

Martha let him tug her outside and they waited beside the door. "I thought _he_ ," she nodded to the door. "Was your dad."

"Well, yeah. Him too. Sired by one," he answered with a wink. "Sired by them all, I guess."

"Medically impossible," Martha rebutted. "And just. Ew. Really."

"No, that's not ew. I'll tell you what's ew," he said softly before he took a careful look around before he leaned in to whisper against her ear. "It's _how_ they _sire_ children that's ew."

Martha snickered, snorted, and then broke out into laughter. "Oh yes. You're definitely the Doctor's son." Her chuckles calmed. "So. Your mum. She's Rose Tyler?"

He nodded. "She sure is." He grinned. "And she's gonna love you!" His eyes widened. "Unless you've … and you haven't, right?"

"Haven't _what_?"

He looked momentarily panicked and sucked in kisses at the air. "Smooched with Dad?"

Martha froze for a moment at that. She frowned. She shook her head. "Oh. No! No. No no no. Nothing like that. Well. I mean. We did. Once. But it didn't mean anything. It was for, well, genetic transfer."

He leaned in. "Genetic transfer is how they make babies, Martha." He flicked a brow, gasped, and then practically blew his eyes wide open. "So that means that you and dad…"

"Oh good God no!" She found herself backing up a little. "He kissed me. Once. Back, oh way back. It was a thing with the Judoons, and he thought that by showing evidence of facial contact with an alien, that I'd be somehow protected from _something_."

"That has to be the most unique excuse ever to suck face with someone."

"That's kind of what I thought at the time, too." She sighed and leaned her back up against the wall.

The Doctor threw open the doors of the TARDIS and pulled his jacket onto his shoulders. "Okay. So that's that then."

Martha peeled herself from the door. "Did you get the answers you needed."

"Indeed I did," he answered far more quickly than was typical for him. "And now there's work to do. Plans to make. Skies to watch. People to protect." He looked down at Gallifrey. "And speaking of. Back to your classes. Martha, can you please escort my son back to Farrington. Make sure he gets there safe. If you see Romana, please ask her to find a moment to return to the TARDIS."

Martha nodded. "Yes, Doctor. Of course."

"Everything okay, Dad? You look a little flustered."

"Timelords don't get _flustered_ , young Gallifrey."

"Okay, then you're looking pale."

"Timelords don't _pale_ , either." He tipped his head to the side in a silent order for him to say nothing further. "And they certainly don't continue to poke and prod at their fathers when they are told to do something." He pointed to the door. "Now. Off to school with you before your mother realizes that you've taken off. Rassilon knows what level of trouble you'll be in when she finds out you've escaped."

Gallifrey's eyes widened with horrific speed. He grabbed hard at Martha's hand and tugged urgently. "Good point. I should go. We should go. I really don't want to be on the receiving end of mum getting mad – especially when I'm the one who made her mad – and we all know this will make her very mad." He tugged with both hands. "Martha, please. Let's go. Now. Very now. Absolutely now."

Martha actually chuckled at the young boy's urgency. "Yes, Gallifrey. I'm coming." She looked over her shoulder at the Doctor, who stood a looming figure at the TARDIS doors. "Will I see you again, Doctor?"

"You're invited to join Gallifrey and Rose at my TARDIS this evening."

"Oh?"

"On second thoughts, don't consider it an invitation," he amended quickly. "I insist. I insist that you join us this evening."

Martha gave him a wide smile. "I look forward to it." She peeped as Gallifrey tugged at her hand again. "Okay. Okay! I'm coming."

The Doctor watched as his child and his elder self's companion left the barn. He was silent until he was sure that he'd heard the bicycle wheels spin in the dirt and the cheer of his son disappear into the distance. When he was sure they were gone he let out his held breath and looked down to K-9.

"They're all in danger, K-9."

"Affirmative, Master."

"By bringing us here, I brought the danger right to them."

"Negative, Master," K-9 answered. "By bringing you and Romana here, you bring safety. The young master and his mother are not equipped to deal with this alone."

"I hope you're right."

"I always am, Master."

The Doctor looked down at his tin dog. "And they call _me_ the arrogant one."


	10. John and Gallifrey

A/N: Just a short one, really ... had to get really really sneaky to get this out as I really don't think I'm gonna have much time later today, and my goal is at least one chapter a day.

Who knows, though. Might actually get time for another one ... We'll see.

~~oooOOOooo~~

 _"_ _I wouldn't lie to you, Martha. He's actually very well respected across the entire planet as a role model and potential political leader."_

 _"_ _I don't believe it for a second."_

 _"_ _I wouldn't lie to a beautiful lady like you, now, would I?"_

 _"_ _Flattery won't get you anywhere with me, Gallifrey."_

 _"_ _Call me Gal."_

 _"_ _I'm not buying into it. There is no way on this earth, only any other planet, or in any other parallel universe that Kanye West is anything other than a complete self-absorbed douchebag… Sorry about the language."_

 _"_ _Ahh, don't worry about it. I've heard worse from mum right before she gets all mama-wolf on someone."_

 _"_ _Mama-what?"_

 _"_ _Nevermind. It's not particularly pleasant. Would rather prefer you forgot I said that."_

 _"_ _Kanye, or your Mum? Because if I'm going to be honest I'd much rather forget that you think Kanye West is a respectable role model for anyone."_

John Smith's brows seated high on his forehead at the muffled conversation filtering in from beyond the front doors. A check of the empty hallways of the foyer told him that classes were already well and truly in progress, and so hearing a youthful voice talking to his maid was quite surprising to him. In an attempt to catch and then reprimand whichever one of his students was tardy, he stood just slightly back from the main foyer – in the middle of the doorway – with his arms folded tightly across his chest and the best stern look he could muster.

He wasn't waiting for too long. There was a childish giggle and a scraping of shoes against the mat on the outside stoop, and then the doors opened. John's assumption was correct: the female voice did indeed belong to his maid, Martha. The young fellow with her was a lad he didn't immediately recognize.

Of course recognising and identifying an errant student when he only had a view of the young man's back was a rather impressive ask. Recognising him from his endless babbling as he walked backwards into the foyer oblivious to anything – or anyone – that might be in his path because he was too focused on the _girl._ Well. That should've been easy.

"Young man," he began sharply in the hope of drawing the young boy's attention.

His warning was spoken too late, however, as Gallifrey's back collided against his belly and he stumbled an awkward twist and spin while spluttering apologies. When it seemed that he might actually be able to remain on his feet, Gallifrey looked up at the man he'd stumbled into.

..And he promptly fell on his ass.

Martha dropped into a crouch at Gallifrey's side and held tenderly at his shoulders. "Are you okay, Gal?"

For the first time in probably his whole life, Gallifrey Tyler was out of words. All he could do was dumbly nod his head with his mouth gaped and his eyes wide on the man standing tall over the both of them.

"You're late for your classes. What do you have to say for yourself, young man," John asked with a glare.

Gallifrey panted out a three-letter, once-syllable word under his breath, but didn't utter anything further.

John set one hand on his hips and cupped his hand over his ear as he stooped down lightly. "Well? I'm listening."

Martha looked up at him with an apologetic expression. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Smith. This was my fault. I fell from my bicycle as I was leaving my quarters and this kind young boy so gallantly offered to assist me back to the school. Please don't take unkindly to him for being the gentlemen that I hope this school encourages their young men to be."

John's face softened slightly. "Are you okay, Martha? Were you hurt?"

"Just my ego, Mr. Smith."

"In any event, please have the nurses in medical take a look at you. We don't want you to end up laid up and unable to perform your duties because of an injury that you might not be able to feel right now."

She gave him a nod and a respectful dip of her head. "Thank you, Sir. I will."

John dropped his gaze back to the young boy who had made zero effort to clamber back up to his feet. "Do we need to send you to medical as well, young man? Or perhaps I should call for the matron to come by and check on you seeing that you seem unable to stand."

"Oh," Gallifrey coughed as he indelicately manoeuvred himself back to his feet. "Yes. Sorry. I mean. No. I'm fine. Don't need the matron. Perfectly fine. I'm a _suitcase_ full of fine. Never better, me." He brushed himself down and then opened his arms with a big toothy grin. "See? All good. Very good."

"What's your name," John demanded strictly. "I don't believe I've seen you around the hallways here."

"He's a new student," Martha offered gently. "In from London…"

"Did I ask _you_ , Martha?"

She winced as her head dropped forward. "No. Sir. My apologies."

Gallifrey looked first to John Smith and his glare toward Martha then shifted his gaze to where his new friend stood in a despondent pose. He snapped his head back to John. "I'm Gallifrey," he said quickly, all nervousness gone from his voice and posture. "Gallifrey Tyler. New student on campus and one who doesn't like it to much when people speak mean to others." Martha gasped beside him and nudged him gently with her elbow to warn him to quit, but Gallifrey ignored the warning. "Regardless of whether or not you think you have a higher standing over another person, it doesn't make it right to talk down to them."

John's eyes flared momentarily, but the expression was short-lived. His voice was still firm, but it lacked the anger that Martha expected it to have. "Is that what they're teaching you children in London these days, Master Tyler?"

"Too right it is, he muttered indignantly. "And it's the way it _should_ be, because no one is better than anyone else. Not me, not you, not even the stinking King and Queen of England."

"Show some respect," John snapped sharply. "You will not speak with such ill respect toward his and her Majesty: England's beloved sovereigns."

"Well. Obviously you've never _met_ them," he mumbled under his breath. "Liz and Phil aren't so _beloved_ where I'm from."

"Pardon me, young man?"

He held back from rolling his eyes. Instead he rather facetiously straightened his back as though a cadet standing to command and held his arms behind his back. "Nothing, Sir. Nothing at all. I make my most sincerest apologies for my outburst, specifically regarding our honoured royal family."

John Smith saw the obvious sarcasm inside the boy's words and posture, but let it pass. Instead of prolonging an argument, he merely switched tracks. His eyes shifted to Martha. "You say that you fell on the grounds of the servant's quarters?"

She nodded. "Yes, Mr. Smith."

He then let his gaze fall to Gallifrey. "Well then, Mr. Tyler. Would you care to explain why you were off school grounds and playing about in the servant's quarters, when that section of our grounds is absolutely off-limits to all students?"

Martha winced and just waited to hear the spluttered excuse that he had to make up on the spot. She felt bad for trying to think on her feet to get Gallifrey out of trouble and ultimately got the lad into worse trouble.

"Sorry, Gal," she whispered with an apologetic look.

"S'okay," he said with more wink than voice. He looked up to John Smith with an innocent expression. "Well," he began. "During our biology lecture with Mr. Adams this morning, I found myself quite fascinated with his remarks on the brown hare – and most specifically the _boxing_ matches that they have been known to engage in. I thought that I'd take a walk and see if I could see the hares first hand and study their behaviours." He pointed to his satchel. "I brought my lab book so that I could take notes and perhaps make some sketches – extra credit and all that." He inhaled a deep breath. " _But_ then I discovered that the behaviour that most intrigued me is actually a mating behavior, and therefore not something that I would be able to watch and analyse until somethere in March. It's November, see." He frowned. "Oh, and when I say watch and analyse mating behaviours, let's be clear that I have no inclination to watch the actual mating itself, because that is somewhat eww, but the courtship is something I think is rather fascinating." He tipped his head to one side as his eyes shifted form the teacher and lazily stared into the empty space beside him. "Actually courting across all species is somewhat fascinating. So many different ways to say _I love you_ , isn't there." He shook himself of the thought. "But anyway. So when I realised that I was going to be out of luck for that, I opted to instead study the various burrow types underneath the thickets and perhaps I could create an identification chart. And. Well. In order to do that I had to find burrows, didn't I, and there was a rather large soil disturbance near the servant's quarters that I later identified as a badger sett…"

"It is a simple mind that rambles," John smith cut in suddenly.

Gallifrey stopped talking and frowned. "Hold on. What was that?"

"A mind that's simple lacks the mental coordination to articulate and refine their words into one concise sentence or paragraph," he lectured with a smirk. "Rambling on in the manner in which you have during our meeting today doesn't give me much confidence that you're going to be one of my brighter students."

Gallifrey's eyes widened almost as wide as his jaw.

John Smith waved his hand at the classrooms down the hall. "Now get to your class, you are already very late."

Gallifrey's breathing rate increased ever so slightly as he watched the retreat of John Smith from the hallway. His hearts hammered against his chest and his eyes began to harden.

Martha sensed the change in Gallifrey's demeanour and put her hands on his shoulders. "Don't take what he says to heart, Gal. Remember, he's just a human man, a product of this time. He doesn't mean what he says…"

Gallifrey's lip curled and he let out a low little growl of displeasure. "Oh no you don't…"

Before Martha could even begin to form a thought that might be able to stop him, Gallifrey stalked toward John Smith.

"A _simple_ mind," he corrected darkly. "Is one incapable of free thought and creativity." He curled around John's tall frame and stood toe to toe with him. "A _simple_ mind is one of autonomy," his face contorted with disgust. "A mind that can't think for itself because it's been so stuffed with the thoughts and discoveries of _everyone else_. A _simple_ mind won't ramble and babble and swim with a million thoughts of the infinite possibilities that exist all around us, every day, in everything we see and do."

John smith merely raised a brow as he looked down at the young boy. He said nothing.

…Which was fine, because Gallifrey wasn't quite done.

"The greatest and most gifted of minds throughout all of history weren't in fact, a neat little filing cabinet of thoughts and ideas. No. Their minds were a convoluted and jumbled mess! Do you believe that William Shakespeare was a simple man, Mr. Smith?" He waited a heartsbeat for an answer, and then continued. "Of course not. You and the entire education system across this entire planet believe him to be a literary mastercrasftsman. Brilliant. A genius!" His fists found his hips and he stooped forward just slightly as he kept his head raised to John Smith. "And do you think that his everyday chatter wasn't a bumbling and babbling mess of errant ideas that searched for a quill to transcribe them to paper; because I think I can pretty well assure you that he didn't keep his sentences to a five word maximum. Nosiree."

John kept quiet, but watched as young Gallifrey began a light pacing walk.

"What about our own Charles Dickens, author of such masterpieces of _A Tale of Two Cities_ and _A Christmas Carol_. Would you say he was any less of a prodigy because he was unable to condense his works of genius into a less descriptive and _simple_ text more appropriate for narrow minded twits like you?"

Gallifrey's eyes widened with shock. I was with belated realisation that he was having some difficulty with his brain to mouth filter – which had malfunctioned somewhere around the time that he learned to talk – and while in his own century it might've been easier to worm himself out of it, who knew just what kind of horrible punishment was going to rain down on him.

…They used paddles in 1913, didn't they?"

Martha sucked in a ragged gasp and even minced in expectation of John Smith snatching the young boy by his ear and tugging him toward the Head Master's Office. She covered her mouth with her hands and waited.

Instead of exploding, however, John Smith took a slow pair of strides toward the child and smiled warmly as he set his hand on his shoulder. "Go to class, Gallifrey Tyler," he ordered quietly. "Tell Mr. Harrison that I am aware of your tardiness and have dealt with it."

"W-What?"

" _Pardon me_ ," John corrected with a smile. "You're late, now please get to class."

"But…"

"You will have until the count of three, or I will be forced to take you to the Head Master's office for reprimand, Master Tyler."

"But…"

"And that will typically involve a discussion with your parents about your behaviour."

Terror crossed Gallifrey's eyes. "You'll tell my _mum_?"

John nodded. "In explicit detail."

Both Martha and John Smith jerked backward at the speed by which Gallifrey took off down the hallway, robes and satchel flying out in his wake.

"Thank you, Sir."

John frowned a little in puzzlement as he turned his gaze down to Martha. "Thank you for _what_?"

"Gallifrey," she offered quietly as she looked down the now empty corridor. "He's not like the others, you know. He's…"

"He's special," John offered quietly. "A very unusual child."

"More than you think," she said with a weak smile.

"Yes," he admitted softly as his mind replayed the image of the young boy with untamed chestnut hair and brilliantly endless chocolate eyes that seemed to hold within them the very secret of the universe itself. "He is." The then inhaled a sharp breath and shook himself. "Well then..."

Martha thumbed over her shoulder. "I'd best be off then, Sir. Unless there's something you need from me."

"No," he answered quickly. "Nothing right now. I'm okay, thank you. I expect I'll see you this evening with my evening cup of tea?"

She dipped in a light bow. "I'll see you then, Sir. Thank you."

John Smith took his leave with a blink and a smile that told her goodbye. She watched as he clasped his hands behind his back and walked tall along the corridor that Gallifrey had disappeared into, and wiped her hand heavily down her face.

"Romana," she muttered finally to herself. "Must find Romana…" Her brows lifted. "Must work out who Romana is, first…"


	11. Periodic Table of the Elements

A/N: The song that Gallifrey sings here. Well. It's called the New Periodic Table of the Elements, by ASAP Science. It's one of my son's favourites and he randomly breaks out into it with little or no warning, thereby ensuring that it's stuck in my head all day.

So if you want to get a feeling for Gal and his theatrics, listen to that. 'm sure you can youtube it... hahahah.

Right. This chapter. I'm going to apologise because it's a little all over the place. But I had to get through a lot to try and push this on, and I didn't want to do it in four chapters... figured I'd put it in one. :)

I certainly hope you enjoy.

~~oooOOOooo~~

" _There's Hydrogen and Helium, then Lithium, Beryllium. Boron, Carbon everywhere, Nitrogen all through the air. With Oxygen so you can breathe and Fluorine for your pretty teeth. Neon to light up the signs, Sodium for salty times_."

Gallifrey looked up from his notebook and dramatically rounded his arms in front of him do emphasize the next line of his song. " _Magnesium! Aluminium, Silicon. Phosphorus, then Sulfur, Chlorine and Argon. Potassium and Calcium so you'll grow strong. Scandium, Titanium, Vanadium, and Chromium and Manganese._ "

Rose Tyler folded the second to last of the bed sheets and chuckled at her son as he bobbed happily in a seat at the edge of the room and sang his little heart out while he scratched noted into his notebook.

" _This is the Periodic Table_ , _Noble Gas is stable, Halogens and Alkali react aggressively. Each period will see new outer shells while electrons are added moving to the right_."

" _Iron is the twenty-sixth, then Cobalt, Nickel coins you get. Copper, Zinc and Gallium, Germanium and Arsenic."_

Romana stood a silent stand beside Rose, with the last of the bed sheets held half folded between her hands. "What a catchy little tune."

Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Wait until you've sung it in your head for the hundredth time, Romana. You won't be thinking it's _catchy_ then."

"Oh," she half sang in response as she angled her head to one side and watched the young child sway to he beat in his chair as he swung his feet forward and backward in the seat. "He's reciting the Sol III Elemental Table, isn't he?"

"In numerical order to the tune of Jacques Offenbach's _Infernal Galop_ ," Rose replied with a chuckle. She then tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear and pressed her hip into the edge of the examination table that she and Romana were using as a laundry table. "Is that what you Timelords call Earth, then? Sol III?"

"Earth has many names," Romana replied with a slow smile and a slight waggle in her brow. "But officially, it's Sol III."

"Has Gallifrey – the planet, not my child - got any other _unofficial_ names?"

"That depends entirely on who you ask."

Rose let out a laugh. "Of course."

"And just what other names might Gallifrey – your son, not my planet – have?"

"Depends entirely on who you ask."

Both women chuckled, and then squeaked with amusement when a little chestnut head popped up in between them to purr huskily the next line of his song.

" _Barium is Fifty-Six and this is where the table splits. Where lanthanide have just begun. Lanathium, Cerium and Praseodymium_."

Rose gave him a playful flick on the shell of his ear. "Go sit down, you little monkey," she ordered with a laugh. "Have you finished your homework?"

"'Bout a half hour ago," he said with a shrug as he padded across the floor and flopped back down in the chair. "Just some reading, really, and as I bring speed reading to a whole new level, I had that done in no time." He snapped his fingers.

"Well. Read it again," Rose challenged him.

"Done it five time's already, Mum. I read it again I'll have it memorized."

Romana set her hands on her hips. "Well. The best way to make sure you know everything _is_ to memorize it, isn't it, young Lord?"

"But…"

"As your mother suggested," she pressed. "Pick up your book and read it again."

The surprised look he had on his face quickly turned to one of indignant arrogance. "Oh, so I get it. Auntie TARDIS is the fun aunt, and Aunty Romana is the evil aunt."

Romana leaned down to whisper against his head. "Oh, you have no idea just how _evil_ Auntie Romana can be."

His eyes widened as she spoke more words against his ear. He then swallowed thickly and picked up his book. "Yep. Right. No harm in taking a sixth run at it, is there?" He wriggled back into the seat. "And just for fun, how about I read it at typical _human_ speed, yeah?"

Romana petted him on the head. "Good boy."

"I'm not a dog," he growled in response with a dark look over the top of the book's cover edge as she walked away from him.

"Oh, but you're a little puppy," Martha crooned as she walked in through the door and scratched at his head. Immediately Gallifrey lifted his shoulders, dipped his head, rolled his eyes back and practically purred as he pulled the open book into his chest.

"Hi Martha," he greeted with a goofy grin. "Good to see you again."

Rose and Romana stood deathly still at the gurney. Their eyes were wide at the scene playing out before them, and it took Romana to break the spell by muttering: "Hearts in his eyes."

Rose twisted her head to Romana. "What?"

"Your son has a crush it would appear."

Rose's eyes flared dangerously. "Oh. I don't think so." She stalked toward where Martha and Gallifrey were grinning at each other. "I hope you know he's only eight," she snarled on a low voice.

Martha's head shot up quickly and she found herself backing away rather quickly from Gallifrey's quickly approaching mother. She held her hands up defensively. "I'm sorry. I wasn't being a creep or anything. Gal and I met earlier today and…"

"And _what_ ," she growled.

"And _nothing_ ," Martha defended sharply. "What the hell are you accusing me of?"

"Who are you?"

"Who are _you_?"

"I'm Rose Tyler," Rose snapped indignantly. "Gallifrey's mother, and your worst nightmare if you even _think_ about hurting him."

"Oh, please. Like I would ever – in a million years – deliberately set about to hurt a child." She pointed with her whole hand at Gallifrey. "Especially not the child of my best friend."

Rose folded her arms tightly across her chest. "Oh, I'm not your best friend, _honey_."

"No," Martha snapped. "The _Doctor_ is."

Both Romana and Rose froze at that declaration. It was Romana that was actually able to move first, and she weaved around Rose to approach the maid. "You are a friend of the Doctor," she queried flatly as she walked around Martha and appraised her with a raking glare. "I will assume the incarnation who is currently human."

Martha's head followed Romana's circle, and she actually twirled in place to make sure that she kept her eye on the woman. "I am. And who are you?"

"You are _Human_?"

"I am. Are you?"

Romana snorted in disgust. "Absolutely not." She shuddered and walked back toward Rose, looking at Martha down the length of her shoulder. "I couldn't think of anything more mortifying."

Rose slumped. "Oh come on, Romana. Must you?"

Martha's eyes widened. "Romana! Oh, it's you. The Doctor gave me a message for you."

Romana turned with one brow raised. " _Really_? And which Doctor asked you to pass along a message?"

"Yours," she said with a shrug. "Tall, ridiculously long scarf, curly hair, wild eyes, slightly pompous."

Gallifrey slid off the seat and skipped into a stand. "We all met at lunch," he advised as he thrust his hands into his pockets and rocked back onto his heels. "Got off to a rocky start, but it all worked out."

Rose straightened and raised her brows at her son. "And just _where_ did you all meet? I certainly hope that it was on school grounds, what with you being instructed not to leave here under any circumstances."

He scratched at his head and mumbled something under his breath.

Rose folded her arms across her chest. "What was that, Gallifrey Peter Tyler?"

He winced. Full name.

"Gallifrey, I'm _waiting_."

He held his hands out in front of him. "Okay mum. It's like this. I met Martha here, earlier in the day, and I kind of noticed that she was here out of her time…"

"And how?" Rose pressed angrily.

"I just did, okay?"

Romana cocked her head to one side. "Time sense," she offered. "You saw her timelines."

"Yep," he popped with a shrug and then a sigh as his hands found his pockets again. "I could see the lines forming a golden tree above her head. Oh. Mum. It's beautiful. You can see the twist and turn of each magnificent path pulling together and stretching with every single thought, on every single decision _made_ on those thoughts."

Rose sighed softly. "And so by seeing these lines, you could see she was out of her time and just came to the conclusion she's your dad's current travelling companion?"

He ducked a little. "'Cause that's what _you'd_ think, right?"

"It would be the most obvious option, yeah."

Martha opened her mouth and let out a breathy laugh. Gallifrey gave her a hurt expression.

"Gimme a break, okay? I'm eight."

"Which appears to be a rather good excuse for you to use when it suits you," Romana observed flatly.

Rose rubbed her hand down her face and winced as she realized what _probably_ happened. "Oh, Gal. What did you do?"

"Your son scared the absolute living hell out of me by turning into the most terrifying level of evil demon spawn I have ever had the misfortune to encounter." Martha shuddered with recollection. "And he will very likely end up in every single one of any future nightmares that I'll have for that very reason."

"Welcome to my life," Rose said with a soft sigh.

"Mum!"

"Oh not the same _kind_ of nightmare, Gal," she rushed out as she snapped out her hands to snatch him up against her belly. "My nightmares are always monsters coming after you. My precious little man." She cuddled him closer. "My worst nightmare is that something will happen to you."

"Nothin's gonna happen to me, Mum."

She snapped him out at arms-length with her hands on his shoulders to look into his surprised face. "You went out after her, didn't you, Gal?"

He let his eyes slide from her gaze. "Maybe."

"By yourself…"

"Yes, but…"

"Alone!" she snapped incredulously as her grip tightened enough on his shoulders for him to wince. "You took off, without telling _anyone_ , with no clue about what danger you might be walking into?"

He dipped a little in an attempt to writhe out of her grasp. "Mum…"

"Do you have any idea at all what might be out there Gallifrey? Well? Do you?"

"I think I have a fair…"

"You have _no_ idea what could be out there, Gallifrey! No idea!" She took a moment to pant in a couple of breaths and released his shoulders to stalk away from him and try to calm herself. "Stupid! Just stupid, that's what it is."

Gallifrey was aghast and his voice fell to a tiny squeak. "Are you calling me _stupid_ , Mum?"

She spin on her heel to look at him and felt her heart break at his devastated expression. "Am I? What? No! No, Gal. I'm not calling _you_ stupid. I'm saying what you _did_ was stupid."

"Same difference," he muttered with an indignant slouch. "If what I did was stupid then that makes me…"

"Oh," she growled as she strode quickly toward him and thrust a finger to his nose. "Don't you put this back on me, Gallifrey. Don't you _dare_ twist this about and try to make _me_ the guilty one."

Gallifrey said nothing, but he levered a fairly decent look of pure fury at her.

Rose set her hand on the gurney and fisted the sheet tightly in her hand. "Get in the corner."

Fury fell to confusion. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened. "What?"

"I said get in the corner," she repeated darkly. "On the floor. No books. No games. Nothing. Just sit there. Quiet. Until I tell you to come out."

Not that it should've been possible, but his jaw fell open even further. "You're putting me in Time Out?" His brows crashed together in a frown as he shook his head. "That's for two-year olds!"

"Trust me, Gal. I have several other options in mind right now," she snarled. "Time Out is your best bet."

"And if you're so willing to emulate your father and play reckless Timelord," Romana injected with anger equalling that of Rose. "Then a _Time Out_ is more than appropriate."

Gallifrey shot both women a furious stare before he turned and stalked off with a hunch in his shoulders toward the corner of the room. He crossed his legs at the ankle, spun dramatically, and then dropped his little butt on the floor. He pulled his ankles in toward his rump as he folded into a lotus position. He humphed with annoyance as he leaned his elbows into his knees and dropped his chin into his hands.

"Why don't you just make me put on a Dunce hat and completely humiliate me," he muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" Rose snapped in question. "You're in Time Out, which means quiet, young man."

He slouched further into his seat and pouted an embarrassed pout. "Last time I try and help _you_ out."

"Good," Rose cheered. "Then maybe you won't risk getting yourself killed out there."

He leaned forward and gave a solid single pound of both his fists on the tiling in front of him. "I _knew_ what I was doing!"

"How could you _possibly_ know?"

Gallifrey shuffled into a 45 degree rotation away from the glare of his mother. He pulled his knees up against his chest and laid his cheek against his knees so that all Rose could see of him was his shoulder and the back of his head.

"Well, Gallifrey?"

He didn't answer her.

"Are you going to answer me and share the brilliant plan you had in place to get out of trouble?"

He gave a wet sniff, but said nothing.

Rose's voice quietened a little. "Gallifrey?"

He inhaled an audibly shaking breath, and his shoulders shook as he released that shaking breath. But he still didn't answer.

"Gal?"

His response spoken softly as fact and was made in a tiny, tiny little voice. "You're disappointed in me."

An exclamation in the negative rumbled inside her belly and then thundered through her lips as Rose immediately darted from beside the gurney and dropped onto her knees beside the little boy. "Gal," she pleaded desperately. "Never. Never ever think that I'm disappointed in you, because I'm not. Never. I'm proud of you, so proud of you. You're my amazing little man."

He sniffed again and rolled his head to switch which of his cheeks was pressed against his knees. Now he looked at his mum with red-rimmed and tear filled eyes. "Then why're you so mad at me?"

She shuffled on her backside to sit neck to him. With a rise of her knees she was able to closely match his current sitting position and pressed her cheek into her knee. "Did you really think that I _wouldn't_ be mad?"

"It's always the dream."

"And if your dream came true and I didn't get mad at ya," she answered back as she stroked her thumb across his cheek and up over his temple. "Then you wouldn't have me getting mad at you to scare you, yeah? If you didn't have that then do you think you'd ever take a second to think about your actions before you took them?"

"I love you mum."

Rose smiled. "Don't change the subject."

"I need you to get mad at me," he admitted with a sigh. "I guess."

"You do."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it."

She nudged him with her shoulder. "You're not supposed to like it. That's the point."

"I guess," he said softly, with forced and false petulance. He kept his cheek on his knee and looked up at her with his big and beautiful brown eyes. "I'm sorry, Mum."

Rose stroked her fingernails through his hair, smiling as he closed his eyes and sighed softly to her touch. "You're the most important thing in my life, Gal. The most important part of my entire universe, and when you do things like this, it can make every one of my nightmares come true." She took his hand in hers and squeezed it tightly. "If I have nothing else at all, I'm okay, just as long as we have you 'n me, yeah?"

"Me too Mum." He looked up at her with wide brown eyes and a pout in his bottom lip. "So are you still mad at me?"

"Maybe a little."

He shuffled closer to her. "If I said I'm sorry would it make you un-mad?"

"It might do if you promise not to do it again."

He launched out of his seat and threw his arms around her shoulders with enough force to drive her into a side-stumble. "Sorry mum," he vowed as he buried his face into the crook of her neck. "I promise I won't do it again. Never ever. Never ever ever."

"You better not." She held him just that little bit tighter. She looked through a swirling wash of unshed tears at Martha and gave a light chuckle. "So. You scared the bejeezus out of her?"

He giggled against her neck. "Dad called me a thunderclap."

That made Rose laugh. "Still a bit to go till you're at full storm?"

Gallifrey moaned and pulled out of her hold. With a sniff and a wipe at his eye with the back of his hand he broke into a smile. "Nah. I'm giving up on the whole Oncoming Storm gig." He looked back at Martha and waggled his brow. "Maybe I'll aim for _ladies' man_ instead?"

Martha widened her eyes in horror. "I don't know what'll more terrifying, to be honest."

"Definitely not a ladies' man." Rose moaned at her son as she pushed herself up to a stand and drew Gallifrey up with her. "At least not in my lifetime."

"Oh, mum. But…"

Romana rolled her eyes, but there was an amused smile on her delicate features. She looked to Rose with a smirk of pure evil. "A century at the Academy will train that out of him, Rose. I have connections. I can secure admission."

Gallifrey's eyes widened. "Is that like _Military School_?"

"So much worse," Romana teased. "Much _much_ worse." She leaned down to him and pinched his chin between her thumb and finger. "One more misadventure, Gallifrey, just one, and you get a one-way trip all the way to Kasterborous and the Mount Cadon campus of the Academy."

"You _really are_ the evil Aunt, aren't you?"

"Boo!"

Gallifrey moaned and took a stride backward from both his mother and his aunt. He turned and thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets as he strode defeatedly toward his satchel. "I guess I'll just make up some study material and pretend to finish my already finished up homework then."

Romana watched with a faux frown as Gallifrey dropped heavily into the chair and tugged his satchel onto his knee. "He's very much his father, isn't he?"

Rose rolled her eyes with a nod. "A bit."

A brunette head poked around the door. From the look of her outfit, she was an assistant from the front office. "Which one of you is Romana Davoratray .. oh .."

"Dvoratrelundar," Romana said with a hot sigh. "What is so difficult about it?"

The assistant offered a very sheepish look of apology. "It's the European names. I do get confused when I'm presented with them." She looked around the room with brows high in curiosity. "My. I can't say that I've ever seen so many people in this room at one time. Is there a sickness going around?"

"No," Romana remarked carefully as she watched the assistant cover her mouth with her scarf. She shielded an evil smile. "Not _yet_ anyway." She then let out a dramatically disappointed sigh and looked to the ceiling. "No matter how hard we try…"

Rose chuckled into her hand, and the assistant blanched somewhat. "Well. Miss. Davoratreelundar, there is a gentleman caller at the front office looking for you. Say's that he's a Doctor?"

Gallifrey let out a squeal and bounced in his chair. "Can I go get him, Mum? Pleasepleasepleaseplease?"

The assistant gave a horrified look at him from over her scarf. "Are you sure that you aren't contagious, young lad?"

Romana curled an errant lock of hair around her ear and smiled with fake sweetness. "As he is basically a walking petri-dish absorbing every primitive contagion known to this era, then we can assume that he very likely is, or has, a contagion of some form. However we haven't been able to do adequate testing at this juncture to confirm for sure if, or what, that contagion is, or may be."

The assistant abruptly dropped her scarf from her face and curled an irritated lip at Romana. "You're making fun of me, aren't you?"

"Yes," she answered with a straight expression. "Yes I am."

"You nurses are all the same," she snapped as she spun and stalked out of the room. "I'll tell your _Doctor_ that you'll be with him shortly."

"No need," Gallifrey sang as he shot out of the room like a little torpedo. "I'll get him!"

Romana watched Gallifrey leave with a smirk. "That child runs like lightning."

"When he wants something, yeah," Rose answered with a shake of her head. "If he's at all reluctant then molasses runs faster than he does."

Martha took a deeper stride into the room and cleared her throat to capture the attention of the two women. "Look. I really don't want to come across as desperate or anything…"

"But you'd really like to hang out with some people who know what TV, Radio and Phones are, that might have access to a pair of jeans or trackpants," Rose offered knowingly. "Perhaps able to provide a plate of chips or even a chocolate bar?"

Martha slouched and practically drooled at the thought. "Oh, you have no idea."

Rose thumbed between herself and Romana. "Travelling companions of the Doctor, both of us. I know for a fact that I've ended up in some gross, smelly, and really uncomfortable time periods that had me thankful that soap was invented." She twisted to look at Romana. "You?"

"That goes without saying, really," she said with a sigh. "He does seem to have problem with landing somewhere that is simply pleasant and relaxing and not dangerous at all."

"It's the TARDIS' fault," Martha offered. " _Apparently._ But he never seems to want to fix this apparently faulty navigational circuit because, as he always says," she adopted his accent. "The TARDIS might not always take me where I _want_ to go…"

"But she will always take me where I _need_ to go," the three girls sang in unision.

The Matron strode into the room at that precise moment. She paused to see the trio of ladies in laughter. "Are we paid to work or to have fun?"

"I find my work to be very _fun_ , thank you," Romana answered with a smile. "So I guess I'm paid for both."

"Joking around with the servant staff is hardly appropriate behaviour for the medical team, Miss Dvoratrelundar." She looked to Martha. "Miss Jones. Don't you have your own errands to run and work to complete." She nodded to the door. "I hardly think you'll get any of your tasks complete if you're loitering in my medical office."

"Mr. Smith has granted me leave for the day," she answered with a light curtsy. "My tasks were completed, and he felt that I had earned myself an evening off."

"Then be sure to let the Head Master know so that they can adjust your wages accordingly."

Martha lowered her head with a respectful nod to try and hide her amused smile at Romana making cat claws behind the Matron's head. "Yes, ma'am."

Rose slapped down Romana's hands and opened her mouth in order to argue on Martha's behalf, but her words caught uncomfortably in her throat as a familiar chestnut-haired man stepped in through the doorway and flashed a shy, but brilliant smile. All she could do was peep though an open mouth.

…Fortunately, Romana thought to give her a decent whack on the back and a reminder to breathe, otherwise she just may have passed out.

"Good evening ladies," John Smith greeted.

"Mr. Smith," Rose and Romana simultaneously replied.

"I'm looking for Matron…" he paused and smiled as his eyes caught her near the wall. "Good evening, Joan."

"I'll be with you shortly, Mr. Smith. Please take a seat if you wish."

Rose moved quickly toward him as he nodded and fiddled awkwardly with the hat in his hands. "Are you still not well, Mr. Smith?" She half lifted her hand to test his temperature, but caught herself and let it drop to her side. "Do you need further assessment?"

"Oh, I'm fine," he responded with a friendly smile. "Quite fine, actually. Never better." He leaned forward slightly. "What was your name again? I'm sorry to have to ask, but I'm really not good with remembering names at all." His eyes lit up. "Oh but faces! Yes, I'm good with faces. Names really aren't my strength.

"Which for a history teacher," Joan teased with a gentle voice as she leaned across him to retrieve her clipboard. "Is not a good thing to have weakness in, is it?"

"I can remember the names that I need to," he quipped in response to her tease. "I never struggled to remember yours, did I?"

She looked coyly down her shoulder at him. "Unless you were asking other people my name behind my back, then it appears you didn't."

Romana looked quite green as she leaned in toward Rose. "If it wasn't something that was bred out of the Gallifreyan species several millennia ago, I would probably vomit right now." She watched the clumsy and awkward flirtation in John and Joan's interaction with mild interest. "Is this truly how your species behaves when they are attracted to each other?"

Rose peeped a quiet sigh at the remark.

"Oh!" Romana hissed out in self-recrimination. "That was very insensitive of me, wasn't it?"

Martha leaned around Rose to nod her head and give a pinched thumb and finger signal to her. "Just a little bit."

"Yes. Indeed." She considered it a moment, and then leaned in to Rose once again. "Would you like me to, oh what did I see on that show in the media room?" She gasped with a smile. "Yes! Would you like me to scratch at her eyes like a cat and call her a female dog? That is what friends do for one another on this planet, yes?"

Martha's whole chest jutted forward as she let a laugh suddenly bubble through her lips like a raspberry.

It snapped Rose out of her reverie, because she let out a similar sound. "In my time, yeah," she answered quietly. She then turned to Martha. "How long has _this_ been going on?"

Martha winced. "About a week after we got here the flirting started," she said with a sigh. "This mutual thing they have going on?" She shrugged and shook her head. "This familiarity, it's new."

"The planet Alreata has created an aerosol compound that might assist," Romana offered with a straight expression. "It's a unique formula that only affects a courting couple and when sprayed on a pair it makes them completely unattractive to each other. I has a proven success rate of ninety eight percent, with the other two percent of couples ending because of an allergic-type reaction to one or more of the organic compounds." She tucked her hair behind her ear and unashamedly continued to watch Joan and John interact. "Whilst I don't believe the Doctor has any of that specific compound on the TARDIS, it won't take me more than a moment to fly to Alreata to retrieve a vial or two. The planet is rather indebted to Gallifrey for their assistance with the treaty of Losmeia."

Both Rose and Martha slid slow and sideways looks at Romana. It was Martha who actually flicked up a finger of agreement. "I will absolutely take a vial of that formula." She looked to Rose. "I just think it could be handy to use in the future sometime. You know. Just in case."

"I met this remarkable young boy today in the corridors," John's voice boomed out enough to capture the attention of the three women.

"I don't know how you can meet a pupil so randomly in this school," Joan responded with light condescension. "We are mid-way through semester." She opened her mouth in an expression of realization. "Oh, you must mean young Master Tyler."

"Gallifrey," he said quickly. "Young Gallifrey Tyler. Quite the little personality he has, too."

Rose's heart thumped in her chest. "Gal…"

"He survived the encounter intact," Martha offered supportively. "I was there."

Joan gave him a look of surprise. "Well. I see you had no difficulty in remembering _his_ name, Mr. Smith."

"Well, when one receives a smart and sharp dressing down by a child then they don't typically forget their name, do they?"

Joan's eyes flared. "This child disrespected you?

"Only after I disrespected him first, Joan."

"With good cause I will expect," she stated firmly. "I hope you had him sent to the Head Master's Office for reprimand."

Oh," Rose growled under her breath. "I don't know which one to hit first."

"We take one each," Romana growled. "As a Gallifreyan I get first right of refusal on the Doctor."

"He's _Human_ now, so that's my right."

John put his hands on Joan's shoulders and spoke softly. "I deserved it more than he did, Joan. I accused him of having a simple mind before I allowed myself to properly speak with the boy. He proved himself to have the exact opposite of what I accused him of having." He grinned. "Oh, but he was _brilliant_. A mind so unlike any I've seen in my whole career."

"You seem quite taken by him," Joan said cautiously.

"I'm quite excited by him," John gushed. "Imagine being given the opportunity to help mould a mind like that."

"that's what _fathers_ are for, John," she said with a sharp look toward Rose. "Not teachers."

"Oh but I beg to…"

A high pitched squeal of delight mixed with a low cheer of thrill ended any and all conversations immediately. The entire room turned toward the doorway as the Doctor ran in to the room with an eight-year old child clinging to his back using his scarf as a set of reins and waving his hat high above his head in victory.

"Gallifrey," Rose barked with surprise and shock. "Get off his back this instant! You might hurt him."

Gallifrey dropped the scarf and wrapped his arms around his father's neck. He ducked his head behind his shoulder as he locked his ankles firmly at the Doctor's belly and held on tight.

"Oh my dear Rose," the Doctor said with a chuckle. "It'll take a lot more weight than this to take me off balance." He twisted to put his hat atop Gallifrey's head, forcing the young boy to have to dip his head to peer past the brim. "But, little cowboy, you really should listen to your mother. So down you get."

"Do I have to?" He released the hold of his ankles, but not the grip of his arms, which left Gallifrey looking like a cape on the Doctor's back rather than the cowboy outlaw riding his steed.

"If you want your mother to stop looking at the both of us like she is carefully strategizing the most torturous and painful manner by which to destroy us both, then yes. Getting off my back would be something you should consider manadatory."

"But," Gallifrey challenged into his ear. "If I come at her from the left, and you take her on the right, then we have flanking advantage against her attack."

The Doctor winked at her, revelling a moment in her slight blush. "I'd much rather surrender, thank you."

He bent at the knee to give Gallifrey a less of a fall to the ground and let his eyes sweep the room. They locked on to the surprised expression of a man who looked far more put together than he had a week ago. With a raking look of scrutiny he quickly rose to his feet and stood to his full height as he extended a hand in greeting.

"Hello. I'm _the Doctor_ , and you are?"

"Smith," he answered quickly. "John Smith." He looked quickly at the offered hand, but was reluctant to take it. "A Doctor, you say?"

The Doctor grinned a wide smile. "I am."

John took his hand to give his a firm shake. "Doctor _Who_?"

"Yes," The Doctor replied with wide eyes as his grin slowly began to falter. "Doctor _who_ indeed."

John Smith didn't take warning in the faltering smile and the widening of this Doctor's eyes. He didn't even register that the man had covered their joined hands with his free hand.

All he noticed was that the whistle of the cool winds on the window and the biting chill in the air had disappeared. He no longer stood in the centre of a medical room surrounded by wood panelled walls, examination tables, equipment and linens. His love was no longer at his side, and her colleagues weren't there either.

…Except the one called Romana…

His eyes focused then on his surroundings as he took a massive and gulping breath of dust-filled air. His throat burned and itched, but he didn't cough against it to find relief. There was a thundering dual-attack battering against his rib cage, and he let out a groan as he stumbled to the ground, slamming a pair of brown pinstriped knees into fine textured red dirt. He didn't brace with his hands or try to bring himself back to his feet. He sat with his rump on his heels, and let his arms hand limply at his sides as he swayed to keep himself upright.

"Save them," he breathed desperately in a broken voice, hoarse as it navigated its way through a throat raw and pained.

"Save who, Doctor?"

He looked to his side, where Romana looked on with a sympathetic and horrified expression. He tipped to one side and regarded her as though she should have known perfectly well who they were. "Rose and Gal," he answered with a slight slur of pain in his voice. "Please save them. Please. Rassilon, please Please help them."

"Why can't _you_?"

The Doctor looked up from where he knelt and stared up at the piercing blue eyes looming down over him, full of contempt and disgust. "Paradoxes," he answered with a wave of his hand. "Paradoxes and bloody broken timelines, and entering my own steam and blowing it all to bloody hell …" He swallowed with a curl in his lip and shook his head. "You know what? Fuck it. Fuck the laws of time. Just me now an'way. No time police to stop me, yeah?"

He slumped forward lightly and looked at the palms of his hands covered in swirling red dirt. "I don't care anymore. Without them…" He pressed his lips together and shook his head. "I don't deserve them. But I can't … I can't live with-without… I just can't…"

The looming figure sucked in a click of air and continued the look of disgust. "And these people, Rose and Gal. Who are they? To you … to _us_?"

He groped clumsily at his chest to grab at a blue pendant that hung at his chest. He fumbled to hold it in a cradle between both of his hands to show it to him.

The figure dropped into a fast crouch to look closely at the precious treasure he held in his hands.

"Romana," he called. "It's a bonding pendant. He's married."

"Oh, Doctor," she breathed painfully with her fingers touching at her lip. "You _have_ to go _."_

"My wife," he pleaded inside a hiccup and he released the pendant and rose to his knees. He clutched at the bottom hem of the Doctor's jacket. " _Our_ wife, and _our_ son. Please, Doctor."


	12. Dreams

A/N: Unfortunately as I am going to be at a campground this weekend, I might not get an update in until Monday - no laptops alowed you see. But I will be back after that all full of ideas and ready to keep pumping out chapters until this is finished!

Some people are confused ... very confused ... I really really hope that this will clear up a little of that. I also hope, very much, that you'll still be with me when I return in three days.

~~oooOOOooo~~

It was a deep and gulping gasp that woke John Smith from his slumber and was desperate enough a cry for oxygen that he jolted up to a seat in his bed. He wiped frantically at his eyes with clumsy swipes of the back of his hand and choked out a sound that could have been described as a sob by how pained it was.

He looked up to the doorway through blurred eyes as he heard a light tap, but was unable to request privacy fast enough to prevent Martha entering his chambers with a tray in her hands. All he could do was sit in his bed in silence and watch her set the tray down on the table.

"Good morning, Mr. Smith," she called lightly as she folded his morning newspaper and set it on the table beside the tray. "I expect you slept well?"

His voice was croaked and hoarse when he answered in the affirmative, which immediately caught her attention. She looked up at him with a tight expression of puzzlement that flashed to a wide-eyed look of embarrassment. Her hand flew to her face as she spun to put her back to him. "My goodness, Sir. I apologise. You aren't dressed?"

John looked down at himself and immediately reddened. "Goodness," he croaked as he fumbled through his sheets and blanket to locate at least his button-down pyjama shirt. "My apology, Martha. I am quite shamefully underdressed for visitors."

Martha took a moment to smile into her hand as she let the image of the Doctor, bare-chested except for a silver chain and blue pendant, with his hair scruffed in what she would describe as a _Just Shagged_ style. The image was quickly filed away with a light clearing of her throat as she heard the telltale rustle of flannel fabric being pulled onto a semi-naked body. She sighed softly . "Shall I take my leave, then, Sir?"

"No,' he blurted suddenly. He took a breath at her gasp and coughed awkwardly into his fist. "I mean not yet. At least not until I have had the opportunity to apologise to you."

"None necessary," she replied softly with a slight twist in her neck to look across her shoulder as if trying to take a slight peek. "I didn't realize that this morning you would be sleeping in, Sir."

He slid out of his bad and snatched his robe from the end of his bed. With one fluid move he had the robe settled on his shoulders. He tied it at the waist as he padded on bare feet toward the table.

"I'm decent," he advised her gently. "You can turn around now."

Martha turned around and was finally able to notice the dark hollows of his eyes and the telltale red rimmed eyes of someone who had not had a decent night sleep. Visible tracks that practically glistened in the sunlight told her that he'd very likely been crying.

"Is everything okay, Mr. Smith? You look frightful this morning."

He nodded as he ran a hand over his hair. "I had a terrifically vivid dream last night, Martha, and I'm afraid that it might have affected my unconscious self."

Martha gave a knowing nod as she poured his tea. "Have you had dreams of that nature before, Sir?"

"Oh, I have fantastic dreams all the time, Martha." He paused and thought about it. "Exceptional dreams, really."

"Are they always so vivid that you wake up looking like you've had your heart ripped from your chest?"

His eyes widened at that. "Well," he spluttered lightly. "That's a rather forward comment, don't you think, Miss Jones?"

She winced at her slip. "My apology, Mr. Smith."

"None required,: he said with a sigh. "I expect I do look like a broken man this morning. It was quite the dream."

"Did you want to share?"

He took a seat at the small table at the edge of the room and swiped a piece of toast from a plate. He bit into it and chewed a moment before answering. "Are you able to tell me how I came to end up in my bed last night?"

Martha smirked and gave him a light chuckle. "Well it is _your_ bed, Sir. I would guess it isn't out of the realm of possibility that you would wake in it."

"How very cheeky of you," he shot back with a light and playful glare as he took another bite of his toast. The smile fell however and he straightened in his chair. "I don't remember much of last evening," he admitted. "I do recall visiting the medical offices in order to meet with Joan – err – Matron Redfern."

"Yes, Sir," Martha replied as she moved around to the mantel of his fireplace and began to half-arsedly dust it with a feather duster. "You were, indeed, in the medical offices. The Matron, as well as her two nurses, Romana and Rose…"

"Rose," he breathed in an almost longing whisper. "She would be the blonde one, correct?"

Martha smiled as she looked over to him. "They are both _blonde_ , Sir."

"Indeed," he said with a laugh. "But I mean the one with amber eyes."

"Romana has blue eyes, Rose has brown-hazel," she corrected softly. "Neither colour is close to amber."

John scratched at his head and frowned as he tried to remember. "Gallifrey's mother?"

Martha _almost_ said _ding ding ding_ , but made do with a nod. "That's correct, Sir. Rose and Gallifrey and mother and son."

"And so the man in the scarf?"

"Oh, you remember him," Martha hesitated slightly. "The Doctor?"

John covered his mouth with his hand and leaned with his elbow pressed into the tabletop. "So _he's_ the Doctor, then?"

"Well he most certainly was last evening, Sir," she commented. "When you fainted in the medical room, he was the one to come to your aid and make sure that you were okay."

His eyes widened. "I _fainted_?"

"Quite dramatically, in fact," she replied. "Gave us all quite the scare."

He looked down at himself with panic. "And was he also the one to put me into my pyjamas?"

Martha kept her smile hidden as she remembered the three of them struggling to put the unconscious John Smith into his pyjamas while the Doctor distracted the Matron with his diagnosis of John Smith's _illness_.

"Taking off your suit and putting you into clothing more comfortable was put to the nursing staff, Sir." She bit her lip to hold back a smile at the memory of the three of them giggling and _judging_ and generally _looking_ , but recovered quickly. "I can assure you that Rose and Romana are the ultimate professionals in their field."

"To have credentials from the royal palace, I would certainly hope that they are."

"Your virtue is well protected," she said with a smile.

His blush was – in Martha's opinion – rather adorable. "My virtue may well be protected, but how about my health?" He sobered very quickly. "Am I sick?"

Martha shook her head. "The Doctor diagnosed you with a mild case of acute dehydration," she answered softly. "Nothing too serious. I just have to make sure that you eat all of your meals and drink plenty of fluids."

That made him laugh. "You have been tasked with mothering me like a child you mean?"

"You could say that sir." She nodded to the cup. "And speaking of, please drink up."

He did as he was told, but held the cup hovering just off his lip. "Tell me, Martha. This Doctor fellow."

"Yes, Sir?"

"What is his relationship with Rose and her son?"

Martha wasn't exactly sure if or how to answer that question. "I'm not sure that it's my place to say," she answered carefully.

John nodded as he blew gently across the lip of his cup and then kissed at it to draw off a taste. "Are they married?"

"Uhm…"

"And is Gallifrey his son?" He took a bigger sip and then set the cup on the table. "Or does he merely believe himself to be? I must say that there is very little resemblance between them."

Martha was glad she had her back to him after _that_ question. Her eyes were wide and her mouth gaped.

"In fact," John continued. "I can't see much of his mother in the young boy, either. A child inherits the physical traits of his parents, and he looks nothing like either one of them."

"That's assuming that this Doctor is, indeed, acting as Gallifrey's father." Martha cleared her throat loudly. "This is gossip, Sir. And if you'll excuse me saying so it is a very inappropriate discussion between a man and his servant."

"You aren't just my _servant_ ," he answered her distractedly as he drew himself to a tall stand and walked toward the window. "You're close enough for family."

"Be nice if you treated me that way," she muttered under her breath.

He didn't seem to notice her words as he pressed his hand into the window frame and looked at his reflection in the glass of the window. "Tell me, Martha," he said softly. "If I was another man," he looked down his shoulder at the floor beside him. "And you saw that child…"

"What are you trying to say, Sir?"

He looked back at his reflection for a moment and then let out a sigh as he tore his eyes away from his own image. "Nothing, Martha. Nothing. Just post-dream foolishness. Forget that I mentioned it."

"As you wish, Sir."

He took another quick look at his reflection in the window and then turned with a clap of his hands. "Anyway. I appear to be well rested and rehydrated enough to return to my classes today. Were you able to locate the books that I asked you for from the library?"

"I was," she answered with a smile as she strode toward the table and indicated a short pile of hard-cover books. "They're right here, right next to…" She paused as she picked up a small leather-bound book. "I must've picked this one up by mistake. My apology, Sir, I'll return it."

He watched as she turned it over in her hands with curiosity, and then extended his hand to take it gently from her. "That's my journal," he admitted softly. "I-I've been writing down the dreams I've been having lately." He looked at the book with an almost puzzled expression. "I've been having such extraordinary dreams lately, and it seems a shame not to write them all down when I wake up."

Martha's brows arched high. "Oh? Are they all as vivid as the one you experienced last night?"

He shook his head. "Not all of them. For the most part they are a rather convoluted combination of thoughts and images." He opened the book and glanced over the page that contained hastily scratched words and drawings. "Sometimes I can see it all so clearly, and other times it's like walking through a fog." He flicked to another page and let his eyes dance across the pictures. "Quite fascinating, really."

"And why's that," she asked along a whisper as she cautiously approached his side and looked at the thoughts and pictures on the page. "Oh. My."

"In my dreams I'm this adventurer," he breathed. "The Doctor, I'm called. Doctor. I'm an alien with _two_ hearts. Two!" He swallowed as he flicked to another page and practically froze. His next words came out as a slow whisper. "… or is it really five?" His words fell off as his finger traced the image of a woman leaning forward with her hands cradling the slightest of swells of her belly. Her face was obscured by a curtain of hair, but the word beside it in messy cursive, while naming a flower drawn beside the woman, made his breath stop completely.

"Rose."

~~oooOOOooo~~

There was a reason that the Doctor liked to travel with Human companions rather than those born of the Gallifreyan houses. One. They were very rarely obnoxious. Two. They weren't graduates of the Time Lord Academy and therefore were still curious and non-jaded about time travel, and so he always had something to teach. Three. They weren't Romanadvoratrelundar.

Point three was a very important point to make a point of noting.

Very important point, that.

Romana, whilst still young enough to get a thrill when travelling to new planets and naïve enough to believe anything he had to say in regards to these new planets, was still an Academy graduate, and therefore …

…Therefore she wasn't shy in making sure that he knew when she was in disagreement with him. Fortunately, she was content to simply stare him down until he acknowledged her and asked her to state what was on her mind.

The patience of a saint, this one.

Currently, she was on her second hour of following him around the console of the TARDIS with her arms folded across her chest and a pout of admonishment on her lips. While it was incredibly tempting to see just how much patience Romana had in regards to holding off on giving him a piece of her mind, he really didn't want to prolong the agony much longer.

"Best to get it over and done with," he muttered to himself as he flicked his scarf over his shoulder and pretended to try and take the cover off a small portable unit in his hand with an earth-made Philips head screwdriver.

"And what would that be, Doctor?"

He lifted his eyes to gauge the infliction in her tone. No emphasis on any word besides his name, oh, perhaps a mild infliction on the word _what_ , maybe, but not really enough for it to be in any way impactful. Delivery was mostly flat and controlled.

Yes. Well. This would end up being _quite_ the conversation, wouldn't it?

"Whatever is on your mind, Romana, feel free to express it before you supernova inside my TARDIS." He looked at her with a frown on his face. "And I really don't like having to clean up messes like that."

"Must you exaggerate like one of these _humans_?"

His mouth quirked up into a smile. "Oh, Romana. It seems to me as though you've befriended a couple of these _humans_ yourself. I'd be careful about making comments like that in their presence."

"Or I will be referred to as a bitch, yes I understand that, although I don't understand how being compared to an animal as majestic as an Earth dog is considered insulting."

"Humans are a perplexing species," he admitted with a grin. "And their insults can sometimes change without warning into terms of endearment, so do be wary of that." He lifted his eyes to the rotor column. "Especially in Australia." He looked back down to her. "Now. _Australia_. There's a place I should show you one day."

"You invaded his mind, didn't you?"

The Doctor's eyes widened immediately at Romana's abrupt change in subject. It appeared that her patience had run out: Two hours, three minutes, fifteen seconds. Not bad.

He straightened up and pressed his hands into the console edge. "I entered _my_ mind, yes."

"That wasn't a simple _contact_ ," she accused sharply. "That was an uninvited intrusion."

"How can it be considered _uninvited_ if I was entering _my own mind_ , Romana?"

She folded her arms across her chest. "A Timelord who is not of his right mind cannot have his consciousness violated even by his own past or future incarnation," she recited. "That's telepathy one-oh-one."

"Two-point-three, actually," he corrected. "There are several more rules and regulations considered more important than the one you're currently accusing me of violating, including: _When amnesiac a past or future incarnation is able to offer an unsolicited memory package if it becomes necessary to …_ "

"You're not amnesiac," Romana countered. "You are in another form right now – by conscious choice."

"Which gives us a rather nice grey area to work in, doesn't it," he challenged with a steeled look.

Romana stared at him for a long moment before finally exhaling a sharp breath and releasing the fold of her arms across her chest. "What did you show him?"

"A memory shared between us," he answered.

"Considering you are the same man," she muttered with a light clearing of her throat to express her annoyance. "That would be your entire life to this point, wouldn't it?" her eyes narrowed. "Which memory s _pecifically_?"

"And therein lies an intrusion of your own, Romana," he growled. "Asking me to share with you an intimate mental contact between me and my future incarnation." He waved his hand at her. "Some memories are best kept to one's self."

"I'm insulted that you expect me to buy into that pile of Tafelshrew excrement."

"Colourful language," he droned sardonically.

"What did you show him," she demanded. "Don't make me notify Arcadia."

"You _wouldn't_ ," he charged.

"If what you showed yourself puts you at risk of self destruction, then yes, Doctor. I will." Her voice softened somewhat. "I hold you in higher regard than I will ever admit to anyone outside of this TARDIS, and I won't let anyone – least of all you – put you in harm's way." She put her hand on his arm. "You invaded a human mind with a Timelord memory, Doctor. You have no idea what damage that could do to his mind."

"I will be perfectly fine," he answered with a hard look at the rotor. "I just showed me what I needed to see."

"And what's that?"

He let his breath draw in deeply, and released it by half before he spoke again. "That I came to us for help on this; that we weren't here by accident."

Her eyes flashed wide. "You told him the _future_?"

"The future eight days from now," he snapped back. "And it was a future that he _had_ to know."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "But he'd already _know_ that, Doctor." She opened her arms wide. "We're _here_ afterall."

"I _will_ force myself to forget all of this, Romana." His eyes moved toward hers. "And you know as well as I do that a memory package cannot be released little by little. When the trigger is activated for recall, it will all return." He looked back at the rotor. "The shape of I was in…" He shook his head. "I wouldn't be able to handle a full recall. Not at that time."

Romana watched him in quiet with a narrowed stare. The stare was piercing enough that he found himself cracking his neck as though it was being drilled by her eyes.

"Now what?"

"What did you take from yourself?"

He shot her a look of surprise. "What?"

"You didn't just give information," she accused sharply. "You went in there looking for something as well." She walked closer to him and rolled up onto her toes to look into his eyes. "What were you looking for?"

"What makes you think…"

"Your future self collapsed under the assault." She tipped her head to one side. "You didn't just go in there for a little trip down memory lane. You tore through your own mind, didn't you?"

He ignored the question and stared at the column.

"Doctor, answer me."

"It's really none of your concern, Romana," he answered sharply. "And to be clear, I didn't tear through his mind. I induced unconsciousness in him."

"Why?" She shook her head and held up her hand. "No. Don't answer that. I think I know. So you could make an undetected escape."

"Yes," he whispered.

"What was so important, Doctor, that you had to do that to yourself?" Her head tilted to one side. "What could be so vital to you?"

"I had to know," he answered simply.

"Had to know what?"

"Why in my Tenth incarnation I'm wearing a bonding pendant and insisting that the mother of my child is my wife – when she insists that she isn't."

Her eyes widened and her mouth opened and closed a couple of times as she considered that. "That's true, isn't it?"

"We meet myself in a week, Romana," he advised her as he slowly turned to regard her with his complete focus. "He's fully bonded at that point. I felt it. I felt that indescribable pull and pain of separation."

"But…?"

"But I don't feel a full bond with Rose. I honestly don't." He wiped his hand down his face. "But that isn't to say there's nothing there. There is. Oh, it's there all right. And it's beautiful. It is. It's the beginning of something that can and will be a fully fledged and indestructible permanent bond between us." He shook his head. "But not now…"

"So between now and then, you get your Timelord consciousness back and you complete your bond," she offered with a shrug. "You've been separated for a while and share a child. I imagine as a father and a Lord in love, you will seek closure to that bond at the very moment your consciousness returns."

"And then, what, I lose her? Just like that?"

Romana opened her arms and shrugged. "I don't know what you want me to say, Doctor. I really don't."

"And for once, Romana. Neither do I."


	13. History

A/N: I'm BACK! Dunno if that's a good or bad thing...

This chapter might seem really, really pointless. But it isn't. It is actually vitally important to the following chapters... So if you wince and cover your eyes as you shake your head and sigh ... I understand. But the next part wouldn't have made much sense if I hadn't written this little tiny snippet beforehand.

I promise you.

And I promise you'll like the next bit ... A reader's comment inspired it, and I'm really excited, actually, to write it...

~~oooOOOooo~~

"The burning of Washington in 1814 was an attack during the War of 1812 between British forces and those of the United States of America. On August 24, 1814, after defeating the Americans at the Battle of Bladensberg, a British force led by Major General Robert Ross occupied Washington D.C. and set fire to many public buildings, including the White House, at the time known as the Presidential Mansion, and the Capitol as well as other facilities of the U.S. Government."

A bell chime interrupted the lecture.

"Please read from your texts chapters 6-8 in preparation for class tomorrow. Dismissed"

Gallifrey actually let out a rather unimpressed grunt as he let his chin hit the table and wrapped his arms around his head. Around him he listened to the sounds of his fellow students noisily vacate the classroom. He heard the scraping of metal on wood, the swish of fabric as students brushed past furniture and each other, and the incessant mumbling and chatter of kids excited to be heading into the lunch room and then outside on a break from their studies.

Never had he been so utterly bored in his entire life. History was typically a fascinating subject. Avenues for debates and historical accuracies excited the young lad, and there was no subject that allowed for interpretation and debate as much as wartime history!

…Except in this school.

Oh, he didn't know if it was because of this current time period that he was so bored. Maybe it was because conspiracy theorists hadn't yet made their presence known, and so there was no one to question the greyer areas of the stories that history told. Maybe it's because he had to sit quiet, listen to the teacher, and not comment or question anything that he taught.

…Maybe it was the teacher, himself.

Yeah. Now _that_ was a bit of an eye opener for the young lad. His mother had regaled him with stories about how the Doctor would be so animated and excited to be able to give a lecture on any imaginable topic. Rose would laugh when she recounted tales of how his excitement in lecturing would have him so distracted that he'd miss the obvious signs around them and walk them right into danger.

" _His manic smile_ ," Rose would share with her own grin. " _It could light up the entire console room when he got himself onto one of his lectures about this wonderful planet we were going and what happened on this day in history! Oh, Gal. I hated history class at school with a passion, but whenever your father would open the doors of the TARDIS and we'd walk out into whatever period of time he'd landed us in I couldn't be more fascinated by what he had to teach me."_

So with that in mind, Gallifrey couldn't _wait_ to get through his breakfast and even his math class in order to be able to take his seat in class and listen to the energetic and fantastic instruction given by the man who was his father – or who _would_ be if and whenever he decided to turn back into a Time Lord. He'd incessantly bugged and bothered his mother to quickly press his uniform and make sure that his hair was _just perfect_ for class today. He wanted to look his sharpest for his dad. He'd rushed to and fallen into his seat with such vigor that he'd managed to slide it and the desk backward at least a foot, and ended up involving a little bit of an embarrassed scramble that looked much like the Flinstones driving their car in order to scoot it forward again.

His sheepish scramble exploded into a huge grin of thrill when John Smith entered the room. It took every ounce of control not to squeak and squeal and throw himself into a hug with the man.

That smile faded rather quickly, however, when the man who his mother swore up and down had a library inside his brain, opened a textbook and slowly read from it as though it was the first time he'd ever broached the subject that he was supposed to teach.

There was no energy to his lecture, no excited random quiz to see who was even listening. John Smith droned in a monotone voice, reading words across a page with little or no passion – or even interest – in the tale that those words actually told.

The War of 1812. Well, he knew enough about that to be able to completely zone out of study for this two-hour yawnfest. He'd read about the War from several different points of view over the years, he could debate on this one for several hours and still have plenty of material left over to play with.

He was tempted at one juncture for him to raise his hand and spark a lively debate just to brighten it all up, but after he saw the way that John Smith's cane came down on the desk of a student that dared interrupt him mid-sentence with a question, he chose against that rather quickly. Gallifrey didn't know if he'd ever jumped that high in fright in his life – and that student's desk was four desks over!

He only had the one pair of clean trousers. No sense in messing them up just to alleviate some boredom.

And so he sat, with feigned interest, listening to the most boring individual on the planet giving the most boring lecture in the entire known universe. So boring, in cfact that the skewed bow-tie that was tied at Smith's throat captured the young boy's interest more than his words did. And that … oh that was just devastating.

He only planned to cradle his head in his arms for about ten seconds or so while Mr. Smith and the other students piled out. He was going to wait until the silence in the room let him know that everyone was gone so that he could let out a demoralized groan of absolute disappointment, and then pad on out to join the others for lunch.

He didn't expect to have the shadow of Mr. Smith fall over him and for the man to ask him if he was alright.

"M'fine," he muttered around his arms. "Just fine."

"You'll have to forgive me if I don't believe that, Master Tyler."

Gallifrey raised his head only enough that he could support his chin in his hands and slowly levered himself higher by closing the part between his elbows on the table. "Can I make an observation," he asked cautiously, "without the fear that your cane will end up putting a channel between nations on my desk?"

John Smith's brows arched slightly at that. "It's hard for me to make that promise when I don't quite know what observation you want to make."

"Which means I just have to risk it, yeah?"

John Smith looked at Gallifrey's face for a moment. He analysed the desire of a young boy to express the thoughts churning in his mind and felt a sudden need to just let the boy get it out; to talk about what was on his mind. With a smile, he tossed his cane toward his desk. Both he and Gallifrey flinched at it hit the desk, rolled, and then tumbled to the floor.

John Smith's face was still contorted into a grimace at the sound when he looked back to the young boys whose eyes were wide with surprise.

"So," he breathed as he leaned his backside against the desk in front of Gallifrey. "Now that I can guarantee you that there will be no canes making any trench-like indents into your desk – and I suppose your main concern – your hand, would you like to make your _observation_?"

"I'm really not quite sure it's …"

"Now, young man," John cautioned gently. "You can't make a bargain and not follow through with your end of it. That is most ungentlemanly."

Gallifrey's expression remained neutral as he counted off each and every one of the retorts possible for that comment. Finally his eyes cleared and he looked at John Smith with curious concern. "If you dislike teaching so much, then why are you teaching?"

John's face fell into an immediate frown. "What makes you think that I dislike it?"

"Because you're boring," he answered flatly.

Insult flashed past Smith's eyes. "Excuse me?"

"You're boring," Gallifrey repeated. "I've had a lot of teachers in my day, Sir, and of all of them I have to say you're in the top five most boring teachers I've ever had." He shrugged. "No offence."

"Well," John muttered with a frown. "It's rather difficult _not_ to take offence at a comment like that."

"No more difficult than it is to maintain enthusiasm for a subject when the instructor has no hunger for the subject." He scratched awkwardly at his neck. "I'm not a two year old. I don't need to be _read_ to, I want to be _taught_ to."

"History isn't exactly an exciting topic," John hazarded with a deliberately slow delivery. "Children all over the planet despise the subject and so it's hard to be passionate about a subject that isn't so fascinating."

"And if you think _that_ ," Gallifrey responded sharply. "Then you're definitely in the wrong profession."

"Perhaps I may be," he replied curiously. "Tell me. What do _you_ think of history, Master Tyler? None of your classmates seem to enjoy the subject matter."

He waved his hand in a single flick of dismissal. "Oh what would _they_ know? Bunch of dimwitted rich kids who can barely tie their own shoelaces let alone appreciate the trials, tribulations, successes and failures of those who were here before us."

"I see," John said softly.

"But don't they see," Gallifrey continued with the wide eyed expression of someone about to climb atop a soapbox and rant. "Can't they see that in order to take any strides forward you have to look backward? Them," he waved at the pile of textbooks on his desk. "They're the ones who made the mistakes so that we don't have to. They're the ones who put together that big old learning plan of life so that we could learn what not to do if we intend to move forward as a race. They tested the hypothesis of life, Mr. Smith. They took the ideas and ran the experiments so that we'd know what to do next."

John Smith cocked his head to one side and watched Gallifrey's expression contort with the passion he felt inside.

"The War of 1812," Gallifrey continued. "Okay, it might not have been a war that should never have been fought to begin with. It was a stupid war. It ended with no side as victor, _really_. I mean, it ended with all parties being returned to the status quo after three years of brutal clashes that saw each side decimated unnecessarily."

"Well that is a point that can be debated, young Master Tyler."

"Oh," Gallifrey looked up with an almost dopey grin. "And isn't that the absolute joy of History, Mr. Smith? The opportunity for discussion and debate amongst us all based on the interpretations we have of these historical events?"

John Smith couldn't hide the smile of the excitement reigniting within him. "How old _are_ you?"

"Oh," Gallifrey chirped as he held up both hands with four fingers standing up straight on each hand. "Eight! Eight years and two days, actually."

"Eight," John breathed in disbelief.

"Ahh," he crowed with a chuckle. "But that's just a number, _really_. Too much is made of the numerical factor supporting one's age and the expected or _average_ intelligence that is associated with each number." He shrugged. "All species mature intellectually at different ages, some relative to a human life span and intellectual maturity, others not." He leaned back in his chair. "It's like that kid who can graduate university with a doctorate at the age of 16 because he's a savant or a prodigy." He grinned. "Oh. Mozart! Composing and performing complex arrangements at the tender age of five …" He leaned in to John with a glint in his eye. "Although that age is debated amongst scholars…"

"Of course," John answered with a smile.

"Anyway," Gallifrey continued. "Age doesn't really matter in the big old scheme of things. Well. Unless I want to drink alcohol, then age is _all_ that matters, right?"

"I suppose you're right," John shot back with a laugh. "I suppose you're right."

"But anyway," Gallifrey continued with a tug at his ear. "How did we get onto the conversation of ages?"

"History," John offered.

"Wow," Gallifrey breathed with a widening of his eyes. "I digressed _that_ much, huh?"

"You did." His eyes shifted to the clock. "And I think a good reason for that is the fact you haven't eaten since breakfast this morning."

Gallifrey looked down at his belly as it grumbled with agreement. "Huh. Well. Would you listen to that. Seems like my belly agrees with you." He looked up with a grin. "I should go, yeah?"

"You should."

He slid out from behind the desk and stood awkwardly in front of his desk. "Are we good?"

John tipped his head in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

"That you're not mad at me for saying that you're boring?" He thrust his hands in his trouser pockets and shuffled the toe of his shoe into the floor. "I'm not saying it because I don't like you or anything," he looked up earnestly. "Because I do. I really do. I actually think you're amazing."

"But _boring_." John Smith chuckled lightly as he pulled up into a proper stand and dropped his hand on the young boy's head. "I admire the attempt at redeeming yourself by complimenting me, Master Tyler, but let us consider that this is only our second meeting. In the first moment that we met that you accused me of being a simple minded fool. Now, I am a boring teacher." He chuckled at Gallifrey's slouch and groan. "I look forward to hearing your next observation about me."

Gallifrey slouched with his head hung backward as he walked toward the door to the classroom. "Don't tell my mum…"

"Your secret is safe with me," he answered with slight amusement. "And I promise you that my next class will be more interesting."

Gallifrey's body straightened and he shot a cheeky look back into the classroom. "Oh. I very much doubt it. History is so… very… boring."

John Smith moved quick enough to retrieve his cane that his hat blew off his head and tumbled onto one of the desks. He couldn't help but share in the laugh that he heard running down the corridor toward the lunch room.

"Gallifrey Tyler," her breathed to himself as he straightened up his robe and picked up his hat from the desk. "You are an extraordinary child." He put the hat on his head and slid it to adjust the fit just right. There was a slight feeling of unease in his chest, which drew his brow together as he looked down at the hand that he had held on the child's head only moments ago. It almost felt as though his palm and fingers tingled as she curled and uncurled his fingers. he looked back to the doorway with a wide expression of surprise and confusion. "Just who _are_ you?"


	14. So Close

A/N: Thank you as always for your terrific comments! I love to hear from you and get a real thrill out of knowing that you're enjoying my little tale.

Now ... this Chapter ... Sorry if you're a Joan Redfern fan... She isn't painted as a pretty picture here. Hold on, why am I apologising? she was a judgmental and unpleasant person ... I'm not writing her any differently to that ...

Well. Hope you enjoy ...

~~oooOOOooo~~

It was a chilly breeze that kissed through her thin cotton sleeves as she stood just outside the main doors of Farrington and looked across the firing range into the bushes beyond.

He was late. Late by twenty minutes if her last check at the clock was correct.

" _Thirty minutes past six_ ," he'd suggested with a waggle in his brow as he passed by her in the hallway that morning. " _Six-thirty is_ _the perfect time to catch the sunlight as it disappears over the horizon – and is the moment that we can guarantee that all of Farrington's boys are in the mess hall, and we can have a little privacy_."

Privacy for _what_ , exactly?

Oh, her list of potential _whats_ was rather long and varied. It had been so very long since her husband had passed and therefore so long since she'd really had any affection from another man, and so she allowed her imagination free reign to run wild with possibilities, and since being introduced to John Smith a few weeks ago, her imagination had been running rampant. One of very few single ladies in the town, she had him from the start. She knew that there was no comparison between she and the other, younger, ladies.

John Smith was an attractive and well-to-do man almost fourty years of age. An experienced woman of equal age was by far a more attractive option than one of the younger twenty-to-thirty set that had yet to land themselves a husband.

Her eyes narrowed to see her two new employees walking across the grounds with the one called _The Doctor_. Such an enigmatic fellow was this Doctor. From the moment she met him, she felt unease around him. If it was the wild eyes and matching wild smile, his uncouth sense of fashion, or the fact that a man who had to be pushing close to his fifties was so clearly attracted to a woman barely holding onto her twenties, she wasn't entirely sure…

…There was just _something_ about him that set her on edge.

She watched with mild disdain as the Doctor suddenly took Rose by her hand and spun her on the grasses before pulling her against his chest in a dance with no music. She could hear the squeal of delight from the young woman as she playfully pulled out of his hold, and then her laughter as she bumped against Romana in escape. Such an incredibly shameless display to have to behold. But of course, young Rose Tyler would very likely extend her hand to take the love of such an older and likely wealthy man. She had a young boy to sustain and would need the affections and the income of a well-to-do man to get them through.

Young Gallifrey was already calling this doctor his father – of which he was most clearly not – so it was safe to assume that an announcement of the intention to wed would not be too far away. It was her hope, however, that they would be respectful enough to save that announcement for after the Fall Dance. This event was one of the highlights of the social calendar, and really shouldn't be overshadowed by a wedding…

…Although, perhaps, the excitement of a wedding may finally push her own suitor into seeking a proper courtship with her. Walks and quiet moments were lovely, but something more official would be much better.

Her attention, and her head, suddenly flew upward as Rose Tyler jogged by her. The young woman's face was flushed pink, and a smile stretched completely across her cheeks. She spoke her name in greeting as she passed, and Joan simply nodded in acknowledgement of the greeting.

Her attention then fell to Romana and the _Doctor_ as they spoke in hushed voices at the edge of the grassy field. She probably shouldn't have listened in, but her curiosity was far too strong to ignore them.

The Doctor looked up with a soft smile as Rose waved and darted back up toward the school. She'd escaped him with the excuse that she had to make sure that their son had eaten enough dinner with his school mates and wanted to ensure that he was settled in with his homework before she took up her post in the medical offices for the evening.

Romana strode up to stand beside him and offered him a knowing smile as she paused a respectful couple of feet from him.

"You're quite taken by her, aren't you, Doctor?"

He smiled at the question, although he didn't look toward her. "How can I not be," he answered softly. "That precious girl bore me a handsome and brilliant son."

"You're lying if you say that's your only reason," she offered with a snort. "I will expect her incredible beauty – both physically and inside her soul – has nothing to do with it at all."

The smile opened up to a full grin and he looked at her a moment before giving her a wink. "Those attributes are – what do they say here on Sol III – _icing on the cake_."

"Wrong time period for that analogy," she corrected with a shrug, "but acceptable." She dipped her shoulders and let out a sigh. "And icing is very delicious."

"Much like a Jelly Baby."

"Nothing like a Jelly Baby," she countered with a frown. "A sweet in the shape of an infant child versus the sweet decadent creamery of cake frosting? There is no comparison to be made."

"Ahh, but Romana. I can carry a bag of Jelly Babies in my pocket – you cannot do the same with cake frosting."

"You say that like there'd be frosting left to carry away."

He raised his head to let out a booming laugh. "Oh but you're right, Romana. You are so very right about that."

She smiled smugly in response. "I typically am."

His laugh fell as his eyes drifted back to the doors of the school. "Romana, might I ask you a favour?"

She rolled her eyes. "You may ask, but that doesn't guarantee that I'll do it."

"How about if I ask nicely and say _please_?"

"Then I'll smile and take your _please_ into consideration," she answered with amusement. "And then I shall revel in the fact that you, a Lord, have requested a favour from me, a mere Lady…"

"There is nothing _mere_ about you, Romana."

She preened just slightly. "You're right, of course."

"I typically am."

The both paused a moment with their eyes on each other before they burst out simultaneous laughs.

"By Rassilon," the Doctor breathed. "We are definitely a pompous lot, aren't we?"

"Some more than others," she admitted as she wiped at her eye with her thumb. "So what is it you need from me, Doctor that you can't manage on your own?"

"Audience with the Lord Council," he answered quickly. "I want to return to Gallifrey with Rose and my son, and I can't do that without permission…"

"…Or a house to call home." She nodded knowingly. "I expect admission to the Academy for Gallifrey is requested, also."

"Oh yes."

"Which is impossible without a Chapterhouse affiliation," she noted softly. "Lungbarrow is no longer your home, Doctor."

A dark look crossed his face. "I'm aware of that, thank you."

She shook her head and let out a huff. "I did not point that out to be cruel, Doctor. I was going to point out that Heartshaven has availability now that we have had one deathday and two removals."

"Three lots of availability," he said coolly. "How very coincidental."

She rolled her shoulder in an innocent gesture. "A communication with Braxiatel will always yield some interesting turns of events."

His eyes snapped to hers. "You've already spoken to Brax?"

"I have."

"And who gave you the authority to do so?"

Her lip curled at that. "Gallifrey will be initiated by Untempered Schism for studies at the Mount. Cadon Campus at the end of solstice," she told him firmly as she folded her arms across her chest in defiance against him. "He will do so as a member of the Heartshaven Chapterhouse." She held up a finger when she saw his mouth gape to argue. "That child is brilliant and needs that brilliance nurtured by those qualified to do so. While I understand and accept that you have an unwavering love and admiration of this … _place_ … I will not accept, nor allow, a child Lord of Gallifrey, to be suffocated and held back because there are insufficient facilities here to train him."

"You will watch yourself," the Doctor growled. "I am an elder…"

"Just say _thank you_ ," she said with a moan, not at all intimidated by him.

He huffed. He folded his arms across his chest. He dipped his head into his shoulders and pouted in a manner much like the young man they were talking about. "Yeah. Thanks."

Romana cupped her hand over her ear. "What was that? I missed it. Could you speak a little louder?"

He inhaled deeply so that he could exhale a long suffering sigh, but relaxed his petulant stance to offer her a grateful smile. "Thank you, Romana."

"Mention it," she teased with a wink as she curled her hand around his scarf and tugged him behind her. "Now. We've got some work to do, so come along, Doctor."

"Work?"

"Have you _seen_ the enrollment forms for the Academy?"

Joan Redfern frowned in confusion at the conversation as she watched Roman and the Doctor leave the school grounds. The Doctor was a _Lord_? Romana a Lady? Well. _That_ was unexpected to say the very least. Then again, both Romana and Rose did have credentials from the Royal House, and Farrington was known as the boarding school of the young and wayward pampered brats of the British aristocracy.

Gallifrey Tyler was just another one to add to the list, it would seem.

"I'm so sorry that I'm late."

Joan spun to the sound of John's rushed and apologetic voice behind her.

"I got caught up, you see, in preparing my lesson plan for tomorrow's class." He rubbed at the back of his neck and gave her a wince of apology. "I suppose in my excitement, I lost track of time."

Joan's brows knitted together a moment as she tilted her head to regard his flustered posture. "You're not usually so _excited_ to prepare lesson plans, John," she said in a stilted voice. "Don't you typically just follow the plan set by the office?"

"I do. But I fear that I'm losing them," he admitted. "The students, that is."

"Oh? And how have you come to that realization?"

He took her hand in his and nodded his head up to a small outdoor gazebo just off the main grounds. "Shall we?"

"Oh," she said with a smile as she lightly leaned herself in toward him as they walked. "We shall."

"I am so sorry that I made you wait, Joan," he apologised again. "I feel quite terrible that I did that."

She squeezed his hand. "You are forgiven, John." She waited until he dipped his head to look at her with a smile. "You're here now, that's all that matters."

He raised his head and looked out into the darkness, and grounds lit only by the light of the full moon above them. "I trust your day was uneventful?"

"for the most part," she prattled with a sigh. "Just a couple of scraped knees, really. Miss Tyler and Miss Dvoratrelundar are finding themselves quite bored, I believe."

"The Winter is on approach," he said with a chuckle. "They should enjoy this quiet time now."

"As I told them," she said with a sigh. "As Miss Dvoratrelundar began to rearrange my medical bay." She rolled her eyes. " _Inefficient set-up_ , she told me before she began to complain about the lack of progress made in medicine _in this age_."

"Well that is a rather odd comment."

"She is a rather odd lady," Joan remarked with a low voice and a smile as she leaned against his side.

"But she is also one of the favourites of the lads," John remarked with a chuckle. "Both her and Miss Tyler are the talk in the hallways. They are very attractive and friendly young women who have definitely captured the attentions of the students."

"That's a rather inappropriate observation," she warned.

"Pre-adolescent and adolescent boys are inappropriate," he countered. "So long as we monitor them closely, then your two nurses should be quite safe from errant students."

"I'm referring to _your_ observations," she muttered with definite petulance in her tone. "You escort _me_ through these grounds yet compliment other, much younger, women."

His jaw fell open in realization. "Ahh. Yes." He closed the gape of his jaw. "And for that I apologise. You should know that my heart and my eyes don't roam."

She held up her skirt lightly and allowed John to guide her chivalrously up the three steps that led into the gazebo. "How does a lady know that for sure," she queried as she let her skirts fall gracefully back to the floor and held her hands cradled in front of her. "When the man giving her escort hasn't clearly made his intentions known?"

"Oh," he muttered with a wince of embarrassment as he tugged at his ear. "I suppose that I haven't made my intentions clear, have I?"

She smiled expectantly and shook her head. "You have not."

There was silence between them for a moment. Joan stood in wait for John to clarify their current position with regards to their fledgling relationship, while John stood silent not quite knowing where the current position was.

Oh, he knew he was captivated by her. He enjoyed her company and longed to be at her side when the day drew on long. He wanted her hand in his, and for her to retire at his side in his bed at the end of the day.

He just wasn't quite sure how to put those desires into words.

John made do with clearing his throat in order to fracture the uncomfortable silence. "So. Uhm."

"Yes," Joan responded with a hard sigh of disappointment. "So." She walked to the edge of the gazebo and pressed her hands into the railing. "You feel that you're losing your students?"

"Yes," he blurted too quickly; glad for the swift change in topic. He quickly settled himself however. "Yes, I believe I am."

She didn't look at him, instead choosing to keep her attention on the moonlit grass. "What makes you think that?"

He moved to stand at the railing beside her. "I was challenged by one of them after instruction today." He snorted a laugh. "Came straight out and told me that I was boring."

Her head snapped toward him. "I do hope that you had that boy sent to the Head Master's office for discipline."

"Well. No…"

"By not issuing disciplinary measures on them, you're allowing your students to disrespect and walk all over you," she challenged hotly. "And that is a dangerous precedence to set, John. First you allow Gallifrey Tyler to disrespect you in the hallway, and now you allow another student to call you _boring_? Who was this boy? It isn't too late to arrange for our Head Master ot have words with him about this."

John's eyes widened and he bit on his lip as he looked across the grasses.

Joan noticed this look and grimaced lightly. "It was Master Tyler, wasn't it?"

John turned quickly to face her. His face wore an expression of total awe. "That child, Joan. He's _brilliant_. Absolutely extraordinary."

"Extraordinary though he may be, that doesn't give him the right to disrespect you, John."

"Oh, but…"

"It is irresponsible of you to allow him free reign over you like that." Her fingers clutched into the railing of the gazebo. "A child should be raised to respect the people who are tasked with teaching him. By allowing him to disrespect you in this manner, well, it's a detriment to you both."

John shook his head. "You don't understand, Joan," he ventured with a smile on his face. "Gallifrey isn't disrespecting me as much as he's challenging me. And it's a challenge that I _accept_."

He spun back to look across the field again. "He reminded me of the oath I took when I became a teacher, and showed me why it is that I became a teacher in the first place." He smiled an almost dreamy smile. "Teaching is the nurturing of young and open minds. The ability to mould and guide these young men into brilliant and successful members of our society."

"You're speaking like a father," she said shortly. "Not like a professional."

He snorted. "And I'm neither, obviously."

"I didn't say that," she argued. "You are a wonderful and gifted teacher…"

"Who is as bored as he is _boring_ ," he finished. He then turned to her, an earnest look on his face. "I have spent my career teaching spoiled rich kids who don't care about what happened in the past to give them what they have today. All they can see is their immediate future and what they're going to spend their father's money on when they leave our school on their holidays." He huffed and looked back over the grass. "They don't need all this – the school and the grades. They are here, most of them born only because of the necessity of an heir and are therefore nothing but an annoying distraction to their parents until the day they're old enough to take control of the family business."

He let out a despondent breath. "We're basically highly-paid nannies and caretakers tasked with keeping them alive and out of trouble until Daddy deems them to have reached a suitable age and gives them a job that they are in no way qualified for."

"I didn't realize that you'd become so jaded," Joan said softly with a voice full of surprise.

He looked down with a smile even as he snorted a long breath through his nose. "Neither did I until today, when that brilliant and precious young lad so passionately reminded me of what a teacher really is." He turned back to her. "I have never heard such an incredible plea from a youngster before. He _wants_ to learn, Joan. He _hungers_ for it."

"Then perhaps he should _listen_ to his teachers instead of disrespecting them."

He quickly took a form hold of her upper arms, completely unable to contain his excitement. "Oh, but by doing so, Joan. Oh, he's completely reignited the fire inside me to teach. I have a child, a _brilliant_ child who is so desperate to learn, and to be taught, that he pushes me – _challenges me_ – to keep him intrigued and enthralled in my lectures."

"He's not _your_ child," she corrected quietly.

"While he is in my class, he most certainly is."

She stepped back a step and held herself as she lifted her head and swallowed a lump. "It would appear that Master Tyler won't be a student at our school for too much longer, anyway."

John looked surprised by that. "How do you mean?"

"His _father_ ," she hissed with heavy emphasis on the word. "Has had him enrolled in an Academy at Mount. Cadon – I believe."

John frowned a tight knit of his brows. "I haven't heard of any academies that go by that name."

"I expect it is an elite facility," she said with a sigh. "In order for admission the student needs to be a member of a royal house."

"But he's not. I mean Gallifrey is…"

"He is a Lord," she shot in quickly before he could stumble further. "His father – the Doctor – is a Lord, which makes that young man a born member of our nation's aristocracy."

"I see."

"Farrington is a school for the well-to-do, John, but it isn't for those with ties to the Royal houses." She put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, but you're going to lose him."

He looked slightly lost. "Ahh."

"So don't allow yourself to get too close to him." She stepped a stride toward him and took a look at his defeated expression. "Or is it too late?"

John pressed his lips together and shook his head.

When he didn't answer her with words, she stepped yet closer and took a tender hold of his elbows. "Perhaps, John, your need to embrace Master Tyler like you are is your subconscious telling you that it's time you considered having a child or children of your own."

He swallowed thickly.

"It's clear you have the need to nurture a child," she continued. "But you can't nurture the child of another man. It will only end in heartache if you try."

"Perhaps you're right," he breathed softly as he raised his hand to draw a line along her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "Maybe it's _my_ time."

"Maybe it is," she whispered as his head slowly lowered toward hers.

"Joan," he breathed as his lips hovered above hers. "May I?"

Her eyes fluttered closed as his fingers lightly touched at her waist. "You may."

He swallowed before he completed his descent, but before his lips could close upon hers, there was a large chiming ding from the middle of the grassy field.

"What the…?" He hissed as he tore himself away from the woman in his hold. He spun to investigate the sound. "What was that?"

Both Joan and John quickly moved to the railing and held their hands on it firmly as they scanned the field for the source of the sound.

John frowned and found himself leaning forward over the railing to confirm the identity of the child wearing a pair of white and brown-striped flanned pyjamas, a far-too-long scarf looped around his neck, and a pair of fleece-lined slippers.

"Is that Master Tyler?" he queried in disbelief.

"My sweet Lord just what is he doing outside in nothing but his nightclothes," Joan answered with equal confusion. "And is he holding a firefly?"

John's eyes focused on the intermittently flashing red light in the young boy's hand. "They're not in season, Joan," he lectured slowly. "And I don't know what other insect would produce such a bright light."

"We should order him inside before he catches his death," she growled with displeasure at the untimely interruption.

There was another _ding_ and the light inside Gallifrey's hand flashed with more urgency. The young boy spun in place and skidded to a stop when the flashing light moved from flashing into a solid light. He then looked in the direction, let his hand shoot forward, and followed his hand as though pulled forward into the thicket.

"By the Gods, where is he going?"

Joan growled. "Trouble, that child."

John shook his head. "There is a difference between trouble and curiosity, of which this child has in bounds."

"There is no difference between the two," Joan corrected sharply. "Curiosity leads to trouble, and that child is looking to find himself in plenty of it."

"You're right," he agreed with a hard nod. "I'll go and retrieve the young lad, you head back to the school and let his mother know of his escape."

Joan sighed a long and frustrated sound of displeasure. "Do be careful, John."

He tipped his fringe as though tipping the brim of his cap and leapt down the stairs of the gazebo to make chase on the young boy who had now disappeared into the thick bushes that bordered the school grounds.

Joan winced as she allowed herself a moment to stomp her foot on the wooden platform of the gazebo.

She had been so close this time. So very close.


	15. Escape

A/N: Ooh! Two chapters in one day! Yay for the Blue Jays playing to keep my family interested enough that I could sneak in some writing time.. (truthfully, I was totally into the game too, because I am a rather ravenous Jays fan! But I'm a girl and I can multi task)...

Thank you oh so much for all of your comments ... I really, really appreciate you not only reading, but taking the time to comment. Thank you and thank you again!

This extra chapter is for you!

I hope you enjoy!

~~oooOOOooo~~

Gallifrey let out a little moan of annoyance when he heard his name being called across the grassy field. A quick analysis of the voice ruled out his mother, Romana, or the Doctor as the one calling him, so he really paid it no mind at all.

He had much more interesting things to worry about than a stranger's voice asking him to stop. The number one item of interest was the dinging that his little thing that dinged was doing. The solid light on it told him that he was headed in the right direction, and he only actually found himself having to pause twice to reorient himself since leaving the school house.

"Gallifrey Tyler, you will stop this instant!"

Gallifrey snorted as he kept his eyes on an intermittent flick between the light on his _thing_ and the brushes ahead of him. If his _mum_ couldn't make him stop with those words, what hope did anyone else have?

He paused just a moment to rethink those words.

He would absolutely, beyond any doubt, stop _immediately_ if his mother told him to. Anyone else, however…

Yes. That was better.

He nodded to himself and began to walk again, led by the light of the little gadget he held in his hand. He tried to ignore the voice that was drawing ever closer, and hoped that the continuing steady solid light of the indicator would force him to move deeper and deeper into the thicket. Moving in deeper would allow him cover enough to lose whoever it was that was trying to hunt him down with the quite likely intent of dragging him by the ear back to the school.

"Master Tyler!"

He brought a palm to his forehead and moaned. Whoever was on his tail wasn't going to give up anytime soon. He reluctantly poked his head around the bushiest part of the thicket and narrowed his eyes at the approaching shadow.

"Do you think you could keep it down a little? I'm hunting rabbits here!" He spit out a laugh at his own joke and actually stomped his feet a little on the ground as he turned in a circle. "Oh by the Gods I'm funny!"

"There's nothing funny about running off after dark by yourself."

John Smith appeared from the other side of the thicket and loomed a dark shadow over the young boy. He put his hands on his hips and glared angrily at him. Gallifrey's eyes widened at the furious glare and had to admit that the light of the moon really did highlight the dips and hollows of Mr. Smith's face to make him look a little bit on the side of rather terrifying.

"Well?" John demanded.

"Oh," Gallifrey breathed with forced relief that shook his voice. "It's only you."

John was exceptionally affronted by that and didn't hide it. He looked to the child with a hurt expression on his face. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

Gallifrey shrugged and looked back down at his gadget, the light of which was now pulsing a steady rhythm rather than the solid glow of a few seconds ago. "Nothing," he sighed. "Well. _Now_ it's nothing, anyway." He let out a huff and dramatically lifted and then dropped his shoulders. "I almost had them," he muttered quietly to himself as he looked back into the ticket ahead of him.

"Had _who_ , Gallifrey?"

"Nothing," he answered in a sigh. "No one." He strode forward a little and held out his little gadget. When the light cut out completely he hit it a couple of times with his hand and then slouched in defeat. "All gone now."

John Smith was confused by the lad's words and actions. He couldn't find it within him to roar at him in anger, however, and found himself mostly curious as to just why he had decided to escape from the school house. He dropped into a crouch in front of him and looked up to the child.

"Gallifrey," he urged softly. "Look at me."

He dropped his gaze to look at the concerned brown eyes of the man who supposed to be his father. He inhaled a deep breath and held onto it as he let his teeth bite on his lips, which left him able only to make a kind of humming sound in response.

John pressed on. "Why are you out here?"

Gallifrey continued to hold his breath and just shook his head and shrugged in response.

John remained in his crouch, but folded his arms across his chest as he offered Gallifrey a look of challenge. "You're going to have to take a breath sooner or later, Master Tyler. I can wait."

Gallifrey continued to bite his lips together and hold his breath, and in short order his respiratory bypass kicked in, which took the redness from his face and evened out his colour. He smirked as best he could with his teeth clamped on his lips.

John Smith mistook the change in Gallifrey's skin colour as him being close to passing out. His eyes immediately widened in panic, and he launched himself forward in order to thump young Gallifrey on his back. "Breathe, Son," he barked in order as he rubbed at the flannel covered back of the young boy. "You can't be holding your breath like that. It's not healthy! You could give yourself brain damage or something."

"I'm fine," he peeped with a wince. "Perfectly fine. Superior biology and all that."

John's brows shot up into his hairline. "Superior _what_?"

"I mean, younger body, stronger organs, superior to anyone older than me," he muttered with a shrug.

John let one side of his mouth draw up into a smile. "Do you tell your mother that?"

Gallifrey let out a huff of a laugh. "I'd like to see my ninth birthday, thank you."

John let his humour fall and rested his elbows on his knees as he continued to crouch in front of the young boy. "Tell me. Why are you out here wearing nothing but your pyjamas?"

Gallifrey looked down at himself, raised a brow, looked back up, and lifted one side of his scarf up. "Not _just_ my PJ's," he corrected. "I'm wearing this too."

"A scarf is not adequate protection against a late Autumn evening, young man."

Gallifrey shrugged. "Cold really doesn't bother me much, Sir," he countered. "I really don't feel it all that much."

"Regardless," John said with a groan as he drew himself to a stand. "It's time to head back. Your mother must be frantic by now."

Gallifrey shook his head. "Oh, nah. She thinks that I'm …" he paused as his gadget dinged loudly. "Oh. Yes! We have _contact_!"

John Smith looked at the item in Gallifrey's hand with suspicion. "What is that thing you have in your hand?"

Gallifrey shot John a very fast look, and then dropped his eyes to the item as the light began to flash again. He held it out in front of him with both hands as he slowly walked himself in a circle to find the perfect point. "Oh. It's nothing." He looked up with a creased brow of correction. "No. Not Nothing. I mean, it's a _thing_. Yeah, it is definitely a _thing_." He grinned as the light went solid. "It's a good _thing_." It dinged and Gallifrey let up an almost squealing giggle. "It's a _thing_ that _dings_!" He looked to John with excitement in his eyes. "Which makes it a very cool _thing_ , right?" He held it out in front of him again and walked a purposeful stride toward the thicket once more. "A very cool thing indeed."

John fell into stride beside him. "Tell me, Gallifrey. This _thing_ of yours that _dings_. Why does it _ding_?"

Gallifrey looked particularly thrilled. "I don't know," he admitted excitedly. "But isn't it all sorts of fun to find out _why_?" He turned it over in his hand. "I'm thinking that it's quite likely linked itself up to some form of trans-temporal wave-feed signal that's feeding back with synchronic resonance into the sub-relational transreceiver…" he held it up and pointed to a small metal dome that was the base of the indicator light. "Which is this thing right here."

"What," John spluttered with unhidden confusion. "What?"

"Oh," Gallifrey huffed as he pulled the gadget back into his chest and looked upon John with wide eyes of guilt. "Oh. Yes. Sorry." He laughed a weak laugh as he sheepishly scratched at the back of his head. "That's right. Never mind me and this silly thing." He gingerly shook it and tried to hide his wince when doing so. "It's just a silly toy. That's all. Just a toy. Nothing but a child's toy that _dings._ "

John let out a long breath and dropped his hand onto Gallifrey's flannel-covered shoulder. "It's really about time that you headed back to the school, Master Tyler. It's unsafe out here in the evening, and I'd hate to see you get hurt."

Gallifrey looked up and grinned with a smile so wide and toothy that his eyes were forced to close. He walked close to John and lightly bumped him with his shoulder as he walked. "Awww. How sweet that you care."

John had to smile and shake his head. "Right. Now move it, young man."

Gallifrey gave him a facetious salute and then slumped as they began to walk back in the direction of the school. "I figured that you'd be more fun than this, Sir," he muttered with obvious challenge to his teacher.

"I'm not going to play that game of yours, Gallifrey. So don't start."

Gallifrey feigned innocence. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Sir. I'm not playing any games at all. I was merely making an observation based on your actions this evening that suggest … _well_ … that suggest that you aren't all that fun and open to adventure, are you?" He thrust his hands into his pyjama pant pockets and walked with a slight dance in his step. "Which is a shame, really, because you can learn so much when you leap forward into adventure." He shrugged, which pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. "But, hey. Fun isn't for _everyone_ , right?"

John let out the smallest of chuckles as he set his hand gently on top of Gallifrey's head, which pushed his fringe down over his eyes. "You are quite the handful, aren't you?"

Gallifrey grinned another of his toothy grins and raised his head as best he could so that he looked through his fringe at John. "You have no idea at all," he said with a chuckle. "None," he sang as he reached up to grasp at John's wrist with both hands to push his hand down firmer on top of his head. "When you press down on my head like that, it pushes down my hair and I get this weird curtain perspective of the world."

Gallifrey's thick fringe, and his distraction over the effect of it over his eyes obstructed his view of the man looming over him and therefore made him oblivious to the faltering smile and widening eyes of recognition.

"You know," Gallifrey said with a chuckle as he continued to hold at John's wrist. "If you pull your hand up, then you'd actually lift me from the ground. Which would be cool. But you'd have to be pretty strong, because I'm not really all that light. Well. Mum says that I'm a bit of a lightweight, too skinny. Not sure how that happened because I eat like a horse – Odd saying that: _Eat Like a Horse_ because horses only eat hay and grass, and I eat none of that." He chuckled. "Eat like a shark more like it. Anything that comes along goes right into my belly."

He growled and then straightened up, hands still caught around John's wrist. "Hold on, Sharks don't growl, do they? What sound _do_ they make?" His eyes lit up. "Oh! What does the Shark Say?" He started to sing, laughing as he did so.

John's breath started to shake as Gallifrey babbled almost nonsensically underneath his hand. There was an undeniable pull inside him toward this child, and his name was on his lips as an indescribably intense urge to crush the young boy into his chest and promise his unconditional love choked him from within.

Gallifrey was none the wiser to the internal storm brewing within John, and was in hysterics as he laughed at his own antics. He spun away from John's grasp and danced his way out of a stumble as he fell against a tree and gasped for breath from laughing.

For his own part, John stumbled too. His breath shot out of him as Gallifrey pulled out of his hold. He felt immediate loss. Immediate and soul crushing loss.

"What's wrong," Gallifrey asked finally. "You look like you've lost your best friend."

John dropped his face into his hands and took a moment to rub out the confusion he was feeling. "I feel like I have," he admitted quietly.

"Need a hug?"

John's hands dropped quickly from his face and he looked at Gallifrey with a look of absolute confusion. "What?"

"A hug," Gallifrey offered with a timid little scuff of his toe in the dirt. "Mum says they're the magical cure for what ails you." He looked up. "Always works when I'm sad, but then again, Mum's hugs are the greatest." His eyes widened. "Oh! I know! Mum'll give you a hug. Oh, you'll feel so much better, I promise." He threw his hand up to invite John to take it, but snapped it back quickly as a green light shot across the sky overhead.

"Oh my God," he breathed. "What was _that_?"

John lifted his gaze to the lingering trail of green light above their heads and frowned a tight grimace. "I'm not sure."

Gallifrey's eyes widened, as did a grin of pure thrill. "Well then. Let's go find out, shall we?"


	16. Comets

A/N: In my effort to get one out chapter per day, I ended up with a short and slightly rushed chapter. Joan is particularly unpleasant in this one ... just a warning ... sorry if that offends.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Joan Redfern was livid as she strode with obvious purpose through the front doors of Farrington. The few students and servant personnel that passed by took one look at Joan's expression and immediately made sure to give her more clearance than normal. Joan Redfern held quite the reputation throughout the building as holding quite a temper when her pot was stirred, and not one of them wanted to wear the brunt of whatever ire had befallen her this evening.

Martha was especially cautious as she practically curled around the doorway to the medical office to escape. She'd stopped by for a quick visit with Rose and certainly didn't want Rose to get caught _fraternizing with the maid staff_. Martha deliberately didn't make eye contact with the Matron. She kept her head low and was about to beat a hasty retreat when she heard the low snarl from the matron.

"You would be well served to keep a closer eye on your child."

Rose looked up from folding a basket of washed bandages with a frown of absolute surprise. "Excuse me?"

"You child, Gallifrey," Joan supplied sharply. "I believe it's about high time that you started keeping a closer eye on his activities."

Roe's frown of puzzlement only deepened. "Why? What has he done?"

"Additionally, Miss Tyler, I also feel it prudent to remind you that it is a mother's duty to ensure that their child is taught the proper etiquette around persons of higher standing than himself."

Rose's eyes widened a moment and then fluttered shut as her shoulders dipped and she breathed out a long and slow sound of apology. "Did he say you were _fat_?"

Joan's mouth gaped wide enough that her entire face lengthened at least three inches. "What?"

Rose frowned apologetically and set the half-folded bandage on the mattress. "I'm so sorry about that. Gal. Well. He has a real failure in the filter between his brain and mouth, which means he really doesn't always stop and think before he speaks." She bit a little at her thumbnail, more to hide her smile than in actual awkwardness. "And I'm really sorry if he said something like that to you. I'll have a talk to him if you like."

Joan subconsciously covered at her mid-section with a strategic cross of her arms. "Well, no he didn't."

Rose screwed up her face and let out another sound of apology. "Oh. Then let me guess, he called you _ugly_?"

Joan looked positively aghast by that. "What kind of child are you raising if he speaks to people like that?"

Rose couldn't help but shrug and offer her a rather incredulous expression. "An eight year old?" She held her hand up and shook it in a dismissive manner. "Really. I wouldn't let yourself get offended or anything from that, though. He's an eight year old boy. To him any female is ugly." She then sighed and looked to the ceiling. "Or he has a crush on you. Little boys do tend to hand out insults when they find someone who sparks their interest." She looked back at her. "Either way, I apologise _as his mother_ for him sayin' anything like that to you. I'll talk to him and make sure nothing else of that nature happens again."

Joan lifted the low cross of her arms to fold them at her chest. "And now that we have _that_ little problem sorted out, I do want to make sure that you are well informed of your son's latest escapade."

Rose stilled. "His latest _what_?"

"Your son just took off across the courtyard toward the school's outer boundary are," Joan said quickly. She held her hand up as Rose shifted quickly as though to run outside after him. "I wouldn't concern yourself with his safety at this juncture, Miss Tyler. Mr. Smith has taken it upon himself to retrieve young Gallifrey before he can get himself into too much mischief."

"Oh, I'd say he's already gotten into quite enough if _you_ know about it…"

Joan ignored Rose's comment and looked over her shoulder toward the front door. "They should be back momentarily." She then paused and looked back at the clock on the wall with a frown. "Although I must say it is taking a while."

"Am I permitted to at least wait for him by the door," Rose asked quietly with a look over Joan's shoulder into the corridor, where she could see Martha's eyes peering curiously around the corner.

Martha thumbed to the door and carefully mouthed the question of _Doctor?_ Rose gave her an almost indiscernible nod in response. Martha returned with a sharp nod of her own and then shot across the doorway.

Joan straightened her posture and coolly answered Rose's quiet plea. "I will grant you that right, Miss Tyler."

Rose pulled a simple crocheted shawl off the back of a chair and pulled it over her shoulders as she made her way toward the door. The door didn't have to be open for her to know it was getting very cold outside. She could feel it in the draught coming in underneath the door jamb.

"Tell me, Matron," she asked quietly. "Was my son appropriately dressed for this weather."

"Why on Earth no," she shot back quickly. "That child wore nothing but his pyjamas and a scarf around his neck." She inhaled a deep breath. "Does he even own a robe, Miss Tyler?"

Rose's hand lingered on the air above the door handle for a moment as she processed the question and the implication behind it. Finally, she chose to ignore the question entirely, lest she rebuke with something _inappropriate_. With a hard exhale, she pushed on the door and stepped out into the frigid evening air. Immediately, she pulled the shawl tighter around herself and rubbed at her arms. "God it's cold."

"Don't take the Lord's name in vain, Miss Tyler. I'm sure our father wouldn't appreciate you using his name in the place of profanity."

Rose slid a frustrated glare toward her. She mumbled her response under her breath. "Would you prefer I amend that statement to _Fuck me it's cold_?"

"What was that?" Joan queried as she took position beside her. "With these winds picking up you will need to speak up a little if you wish to be heard."

"Oh nothing," Rose answered with a roll in her shoulders and a crack of her neck against the chill. "I was just talking to myself there." She caught Joan's critical look. "Admonishing myself for the inappropriate use of our Lord's name, Ma'am," she answered before Joan could comment.

Joan looked back across the brick courtyard and up past the gazebo. Her face was set in a frown as she squinted against the darkness to see. "I really don't understand what's taking them so long. John is very nimble on his feet and more than adequate for the task of reigning in an errant child."

"Yeah," Rose sang on a long note. "You'd think that, wouldn't you." She caught Joan's sharp glare out of the corner of eye, and continued without looking at her. "How long ago did you say that Mr. Smith took off after Gal?"

"I would suggest no more than fifteen minutes ago."

Rose's thumbnail quickly found its way up in between her teeth. She bit lightly against the growth extension of the nail and let out a short huff. The nail left her mouth, but her hand still hovered above her lips. "Where are they?"

"I don't understand," Joan answered worriedly. "John was right behind Gallifrey, he should've easily caught up with him."

Rose's hand balled into a fist at her lips and she began to tap at her mouth with it. Her foot tapped on the ground in time with the tap of her fist against her lip. Her gaze was locked on tight into the darkness. "I don't like this."

"Neither do I, Miss Tyler," Joan responded sharply. "If your child's exploits have resulted in any harm toward Mr. Smith…"

"Then _what_ , Miss Redfern," Rose spat finally in frustration as she spun on the woman. "You'll do _what_ , exactly? Paddle him? Expel him from the school? Make him feel as though he is small and worthless like you do the rest of us because we don't meet your unreasonably high standards?"

"Well I…"

"Well you _what_ ," Rose interrupted. "You speak of inappropriate and socially unacceptable behaviours, and yet you stand next to me, right now, while my child is missing and dare to make a threat against him?"

"I have already lost a husband, Miss Tyler," she countered coolly. "I don't wish to…"

"Rose!"

Rose ignored anything else Joan had to say and spun to her left. She immediately launched into a run and crushed herself into his chest. "Doctor!"

He stumbled just lightly with her impact, but he held her tightly against him. "Calm yourself, Rose. I'm here now." He looked down into her face and gave her a smile as he brushed her hair off her face. "Tell me what's happened? Martha told us that Gallifrey had gotten himself into a little trouble."

Rose looked up into his face with a desperate and terrified expression. "He took off, apparently."

"He did not _apparently_ take off," Joan corrected with a roll in her eyes. "It's a confirmed escape of the school grounds. Mr. Smith took chase, while I came back to inform his mother."

The Doctor shifted his head in a very slight nod and then looked down the Rose. "So I'm with him, then."

Rose clumsily wiped at her eye to free it of her whipping hair. "The _human_ you, anyway."

"Still me," he said with a wink and a comforting grin. "Gal is in fine hands."

"Still," she pleaded with a pout of her lower lip.

"Oh," he added quickly. "I'm still going to go after our little rascal. Don't you worry about that." He turned Rose inside the loop of his arms and gave her a brief, but tight hug from behind as he regarded the woman standing a few feet away. He walked toward her with a flick at his scarf and a doff of his hat. "It seems that my curious little boy might've let his curiosity lead him somewhat astray. Would you be so kind as to point me in the right direction?"

Joan passed her eyes up to the Doctor. "It's very dark, Doctor – I'm sorry, I have never caught your name. Doctor Who?"

"Well. That _is_ the question, isn't it," he answered with a grin.

"And one that has gone unanswered," she replied in a bland voice.

"Oh, forgive me," he said with a grin as he extended a gloved hand to her. "Smith. John Smith."

She looked down at his hand and then back up at him. "Smith," she said on a slow and suspicious voice. " _John Smith_?"

"Such a common name in these parts, isn't it," he chirped. He looked down at the hand left unshaken and shrugged as he put it in his coat pocket. "So. About the location of my son? He went which way, exactly?"

Romana's voice called out somewhat worriedly from behind him. "Oh. Doctor. I believe I might have the answer to that question."

He turned his head toward his companion with his brows arched high. "Yes, Romana?"

She pointed toward the sky, and to a bright green light glowing overhead. "Now I would like to think that your son has such brilliance that he is able to create a wondrous atmospheric event of that nature in the skies above the heads of 1913 England." She let out a breath. "Unfortunately, however…"

"It looks like we might have a something breaching the upper atmosphere," he finished with a sigh. "And just who would like to place bets on whether or not young Gallifrey is investigating?"

"I'll kill him," Rose snarled low. "I will."

"Now, Rose. Don't be like that, now." He was kind enough to offer her a slightly guilty grin. "It's instinct. He's a Time Lord. It's ingrained in his…"

"Don't," she snapped with a fast rise of her finger into his face. "Just don't."

Joan looked between the four of them. "What are you all talking about?"

"Oh, nothing, Ma'am," Martha ventured seeing as everyone else seemed otherwise occupied. "The Doctor here is a world renowned Astrophysicist. Gallifrey is as interested in planetary studies as his father."

"Yes," Rose intoned with a sigh. "And they like to refer to each other as _Timelords_."

"Aliens," Romana added with a haunting _oooo_ sound. "Aliens from the planet Gallifrey."

Rose rolled her eyes. "You get a cookie if you can guess why they chose _that_ name for this game of theirs."

"Indeed," the Doctor said insolently. He picked up his voice and added a slight cheer to his tone. "And now that we have a rather interesting display above our heads, likely linked to the, uhm, the peromina comet passing rather closely by the Earth, I expect Gallifrey has gone to take a look."

"Which means," Romana blurted quickly. "That we really should go and retrieve our little scientist in the making before he gets himself a chill."

"Oh yes," the Doctor said quickly. "We should definitely make a move." He held out a hand to Rose. "Would you like to join us, my dear Rose?"

She walked by his hand with a shake of her head. "My son is out there, Doctor. Of course I'm going." She paused to look back at Joan. "With your permission, of course, Matron. I am only an hour from the closure of my duties in the office."

"I'll expect you to make up the time tomorrow," Joan said with nod of her head as she folded her arms across her chest. "I'll stay in your place this evening."

Rose actually held her hands together and offered a light bow. "Thank you," she breathed.

"Just bring John home," Joan replied quietly as she turned and walked back inside. "I'll keep the medical office available just in case."

"That will be unnecessary," The Doctor called back. He lowered his voice as he took the hands of both Rose and Martha and led them by a full half stride down the steps to the courtyard. "If there's a medical problem, I'll take the both of them to the TARDIS."

"What is it," Rose asked him as they jogged across the grass. "Because this isn't a comet."

"What makes you think that," the Doctor asked in a voice he really hoped was calm and confident. "Comets happen all the time."

"Not with green tails," she shot back.

His expression darkened as the hold of his hands on Rose and Martha's tightened. "You're right. They don't."

"Then what?"

The Doctor slid a worried glance toward Romana. "I think they're here…"

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	17. Adventure

A/N: Well you guys are just awesome with your wonderful reviews. Thank you so much for continuing to let me know how you're enjoying my tale! It's very inspiring...

Bit of a headache due to pissy weather today, so I hope this wrote out okay...

~~oooOOOooo~~

One thing that John Smith had not noticed at all since his arrival at Farrington was just how deep and thick the forest lands were. He'd long let himself believe that it was all farmland and paddocks in the area, and so to find himself suddenly in the thick of a forest so dense that not even the light of the moon was able to penetrate, well, that was quite alarming.

His young companion certainly didn't seem to mind as he ducked and weaved with surprising deftness through the thicket. In fact, the youngster seemed thrilled to be on the chase of the unknown.

"C'mon, Mr. Smith," he hollered from at least three metres ahead of him. "We'll miss it if you don't hurry!"

John Smith took a moment to catch his breath before responding through a dry and cold throat. "Just what is it that we're chasing, Gallifrey?"

"I don't know," he sang with definite cheer in his tone. "And isn't it _brilliant_?"

" _Brilliant?_ " John echoed as a question. "I see nothing brilliant about running headlong into danger, young man."

Gallifrey actually slumped and gave a groan as John finally caught up with him. "Oh don't be so dull." He grabbed excitedly at the lapels on John's suit jacket and bounded on his feet. "Live a little, Sir. This is what living is all about!" He pushed himself away from the confused teacher and half-danced into a turn. "Mum's told me stories. So many stories about her and Dad and their travels and adventures." He squeaked an excited squeal through his teeth and jumped on the spot. "And now I get to have my own! And with _you_ of all people! Oh by the Gods, I'm with _you_!"

John's mouth gaped. "What?"

Gallifrey rushed forward and threw himself against John's belly in an exuberant hug. He continued to bounce and looked up with a grin. "You and me. My very first _real_ adventure."

John looked down into pair of big brown eyes that were so full of thrill and excitement and found any arguments against them continuing on this _adventure_ immediately vanish. Never before had he seen such life and such thrill inside the eyes of a child – or in any one for that matter – how could he possibly deny him this?

"It could be dangerous," he ventured gently.

"If I'm with you," Gallifrey countered with a smile as he tightened the hug. "And as long as I'm with you then I know I'll be okay."

John tipped his head to one side and put his hand on Gallifrey's shoulder. "Why me?"

"Because you're my hero," he answered without hesitation and in a voice so sincere.

John felt a pull inside his chest as his heart gave a heavy flop. The youngster's name fell from his lips in a whisper of complete awe.

"But why?"

Gallifrey took John's hand in both of his and tugged him as he walked backward toward the deeper forest area. "Do I have to have a reason to justify it," he queried with a beaming grin. "You just are. Now come on slow-poke. Let's go have an adventure."

It was as though a veil lifted from in front of John's eyes, and suddenly he felt less like a boring history teacher and more like a fearless adventurer who'd just found a new companion to share in the thrill of it all.

"Well then, Gallifrey Tyler." The words exploded suddenly, and unexpectedly, through an open mouthed smile as he clutched a mite tighter at the little hand curled around his. "If you want an adventure, then let's have an adventure!"

His answer was said in a breathless voice. "Yeah?"

"Oh yes. And so come on, then. Allons-y!"

Gallifrey squeaked as he found himself now dragged along by John Smith. "Did you just say … Allons-y?"

"That I did, my precious boy," he chirped with a wink as they both jogged across cracking twigs and dead and dry leaves on the floor of the forest. "It means _Let's Go_ in French. Rolls so nicely off the tongue, doesn't it? Let's try it on for size shall we? Allons-y Gallifrey! Oh. I like that. I'll have to say that more often."

"I know what it means," he shot back with a giggle.

"Oh do you, now?" he sang as he held up a low-hanging branch to get them both safely through. "Then I am obliged to ask: Parlez-vous Français, Gallifrey Tyler?"

"There's a TARDIS nearby," he answered with a grin, and then an _oops_ as he tripped on a root and stumbled to prevent falling completely. "So I can speak any one of five billion languages."

John steadied Gallifrey with his hand on the small of his back. He waited until he had regained his footing, and then dragged him by the hand once more. "A TARDIS, you say? Well. That does sound interesting, doesn't it?"

"Do you know what a TARDIS is, Mr. Smith?"

"I don't know, Gallifrey, but if you like it, then it must be brilliant!" He tugged a little harder. "Let's go find one of these TARDIS-things, then, shall we?"

"I think I know where we can find one," Gallifrey offered with a giggle. "And I think she'd be happy to see you. Oh, she'll be thrilled!"

John threw his head back and laughed. " _She_ , young Gallifrey? _She_? Oh I see where this is headed. Thank you, but I don't need you to set me up with a fair lady, young man."

"Huh?"

"I believe that I have myself covered off quite adequately in that department," he continued as he stopped them both and peered through the edge of the thicket that led to an open field. "Your mother is undeniably the most beautiful of all women I have ever had the fortune to meet, but my affections are already held by another."

Gallifrey took a second to let that little bit of information sink in. He analysed the different possible interpretations that could come of that statement and realised with horror that there really was only one possible interpretation. With wide eyes of disgust, he tugged his hand free of John Smith's and took a large stride backward.

"What did you just say?"

John felt a full body shudder pass from head to toe and then looked down at his now empty hand with confusion. "I … Uh … Pardon me?"

Gallifrey looked hurt as he looked at John. "Do you _love_ someone else?"

John frowned immediately at Gallifrey's sudden switch from excited young adventurer to affronted little child. "I hardly see how that's any of your concern," he answered with what seemed like an immediate reversion back to the boring school teacher persona.

" _Hardly?_ " Gallifrey snapped with a hard stomp of his foot on the ground. " _Hardly_ my concern? I'll have you know, Mr. Smith, that it is every bit my concern who you end up being in love with." He poked a small little finger into the centre of his chest. "And the only girl you are allowed to love is _my mum_!"

John was taken aback by that comment. "Now you just look here, young man."

"Oh don't come all holier-than-thou with me," Gallifrey snapped back. "I _know_ things. _Important_ things. Things that, _well_ , things that are … important. Very important. And." His face contorted into a tight grimace of frustration. "Things that I just can't tell you about. And that's not fair. Not fair at all. Because you're here, and I'm here, and mum's here, and I need us to all be _here_ on the same page instead of a species apart. And I thought a bloody dimensional wall wasn't a hard enough thing to…" He inhaled a shaking, rippling wet sniff. "Because it's just not fair!"

John dropped into a crouch in front of the boy and raised his hands to take hold of his upper arms. "What are you talking about, Gallifrey? You're not making any sense."

Gallifrey roughly shrugged out of his grasp and backed off. "Just go back, okay. Just go back to the school and leave me alone." He huffed through an open mouth. "I don't need you, okay, so just go."

"I'm not leaving without you," John vowed sharply.

"And I'm not going anywhere."

"Yes you are," John snapped impatiently. He thrust out his hand to snatch a hold of Gallifrey's flannel top. "So enough of this foolishness. It's time to head back to the school before your mother has a heart attack."

Gallifrey wrapped his arms around the trunk of a young tree like a Koala hanging on to an upper branch for dear life. "No! I'm not goin' anywhere. Especially not with _you_!"

"You will come with me right now, Master Tyler, or else..."

Gallifrey's eyes narrowed dangerously as he glared down John with a stare of absolute furious challenge. "Or else what," he hissed darkly. He peeled himself off the tree and took a pair of strides toward John. His head remained low enough that he was forced to look at John through his brows. "Or. Else. What?"

"You don't scare me, young man," John blurted, even as he took a step backward from the furious child.

Gallifrey didn't stop his advance upon John. In fact, he continued his approach right up until his chest was up against John's belly. "Just so you know. There's no punishment on this or any other planet, that could be worse than this," he managed thickly. "So do your absolute worst."

"And just what, exactly, is _this_?"

Gallifrey blinked rapidly a few times and shook himself as he backed away. "Never mind."

"Master Tyler." His voice was a warning.

"Just forget it, okay?"

"Not likely to do that any time soon," he remarked with a long suffering sigh. "Now come on, it's time to go."

"Who am I to you?" Gallifrey asked suddenly with a voice holding zero infliction.

That question came out of nowhere, and made John pause. "I don't understand what you're asking."

"It's a very simple question, really," Gallifrey said with a shrug. "We all mean something to someone. Stranger, friend, colleague, sibling, mother, father, son, daughter, enemy, lover, hater … well, not _hater_. That's not really anything to anybody."

"You're my student," John answered quickly before Gallifrey could continue.

He closed his eyes and let out a sorrowful breath. He inhaled deeply as his eyes opened and he looked down his shoulder at the farmer's field. "Of course."

"And as my student, you're obligated to listen to me." He held his hand out. "So come on, then. I need to get you back to the school. Your mother will end up out of her mind with worry."

Gallifrey nodded, but refused to take John's hand. "She already is." He sighed as he rubbed at his temples with a light wince across his brow. "Worried. Mad. Frustrated. Panicked. Upset. The whole pantheon of emotions." He shrugged and lifted his head. "Well. Except happy. Happy's missing from the temple. Guess you can't have it all, right?" He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his pyjama pants. "Feels like the Doctor's worried, too. Great. S'pose I'm in already in big trouble." He let his eyes slide toward John and lightly rocked from side to side as his big brown eyes began to harden. "And if I'm already in trouble, then…"

Dread filled John's chest at that, although he wasn't quite sure just why. Once again he held out his hand to the child. "Come on. Let's go. I _won't_ be asking you again."

Gallifrey's eyes shifted from John to fall on the thicket just beyond the corner fence line of the farm. It was an unkempt field most likely abandoned at least a decade ago. A smile broke out across his face. "I guess I can't get In any _more_ trouble, then."

"Oh no you don't," John warned. He'd barely gotten the warning out before Gallifrey took off again. "Master Tyler. Get back here this instant!"

Gallifrey ran, but spun a little to look back at John. "Can't. Something's out there and I need to check it out." He waved and turned back around to take off again. "Bye!"

"Oh by the love of our Father," John moaned as he leaned back and then pushed himself into a run in chase of the young boy. "Gallifrey, you need to stop this madness and come back right now."

"Later!"

"Now!"

A rumble across the pasture as Gallifrey disappeared into the trees had John slow his run down to a jog. He held his arms out either side of him and finally stopped running to get a proper feel of the movement of the Earth beneath his feet. He turned slowly in place and kept his eyes on the grasses as the ground shook and bellowed a rumbling growl.

He stumbled off to one side and raised his head to the trees ahead of him as he heard the splintering cracks of failing limbs, and the popping explosions of tree trunks unable to withstand the pressure building within them.

And over the top of the sound of the ground groaning in protest and the trees slamming into the ground, John Smith heard the desperate and terrified scream of a young boy hopelessly caught in the middle of it all.

He launched into a run before he'd even had a chance to properly process the sound, and bellowed out a desperate cry of the young boy's name in the hope he'd hear a response – any response – to know that the lad was still alive.

He used both hands to separate the branches of a fallen limb and leapt over the trunk of a second tree, still calling out to the child to answer him. He jumped again, but his feet hit false ground, and with a yelp of his own, plunged down through thick evergreen needles and rough bark.

The fall seemed endless, but ended abruptly as John Smith's midsection collided with the trunk of a small evergreen tree that jutted out of the wall that had appeared out of nowhere. He let out a strained sound of impact as he wrapped around the tree, legs on one side, arms dangling over the other.

"Gallifrey…"

He knew that his voice was too breathless for the child to hear him, but he didn't let that stop him from trying to call out to him. That remarkable child had to be close by and Jon Smith hoped beyond all hope that the little one was safe, and that he'd escaped unharmed.

He let himself slide backward over the trunk of the tree in search of solid ground. Judging by the play of shadows cast by the light of the full moon shining brightly overhead, John Smith had managed to find himself rather perilously dangling off a tree at least three metres from the opening above his head. He dared not consider what the drop below him was.

His feet finally touched solid ground, and his shoes scrambled for solid purchase as he dropped completely from the tree trunk to land ass-first on a ledge that had only moments ago been part of the upper paddock. It was a ledge that was a good one and a half by two metres is size. Plenty of space for him to take a moment to find his breath and try to consider just how he was possibly going to get himself out of this.

Terrified whimpering from just over the esdge of his ledge had John immediately move from the safety of the wall to look over its edge. He gagged when he saw young Gallifrey swinging from the end of his scarf that had snagged around the trunk of a tiny thicket bush that jutted from the wall.

"Gal?"

Gallifrey raised tear-filled eyes to look around the terrified grip of his hands on his scarf. "Help me."

John Smith scrambled to find a way to be able to safely lean over the edge of the precipice and not fall over the edge himself. He hooked a hand around the tree he'd fallen into, and then slid across the ground to lean as far as he could over the edge. He held his hand to the terrified child only a short distance away.

"Can you reach my hand, Gal?"

Gallifrey shook his head and then buried his face into the scarf. "I don't wanna let go of this," he whimpered. "If I do I'll fall. I don't want to fall."

John looked around Gallifrey to take in the full potential drop below him. His breath flew out of him when he realized that he couldn't see the bottom.

"Oh-Kay," he breathed quietly to himself as he let his eyes trace back to Gallifrey. He dropped his hand again and let himself slide further over the edge. "Just take my hand, Gallifrey. Just reach out and take my hand."

"I can't," he whimpered in a tiny and frightened voice. "If I let go of my scarf I'm gonna fall."

"I'm not going to let that happen," he assured him. "Just trust me, Gal. Trust me."

Gallifrey inhaled a sob and shook his head as he clenched his eyes shut. "I don't wanna fall. If I do, I'll die, and I don't wanna die."

John managed to weave his hand through the folded length of the scarf and urged Gallifrey to look up at him with a gentle tug on the stretched and knitted garment. "Look at me. Look up at me, Gallifrey. Just take my hand and I'll pull you up."

Gallifrey finally nodded a shaky nod of his head. "Promise me."

"I'll get you safe," he vowed. "Please just try. Take my hand."

Gallifrey took a deep breath and reluctantly released the hold of one hand on the scarf to lift it and grasp at John's waiting hand. The extra strain on the remaining hand holding onto the scarf caused young Gallifrey to suddenly drop an inch lower. He let out a sharp cry of panic and withdrew his hand from John. He curled himself around the scarf and clung to it with everything inside him.

The sudden shift in the boy below him had John slide a fraction of an inch, also, and he struggled to maintain composure as he fumbled to reassert his grasp on the tree above him. He spoke to the terrified child as he moved to get himself more secure.

"Gallifrey. It's okay. You're okay, okay?"

"I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

"Of course not," John answered back with a great amount of false bravado. "I'm not going to let that happen. You, Gallifrey Tyler, still have to change this world one day." He looked over the edge and wriggled out further once again. "And I want to see how you change this world of ours."

Gallifrey's eyes were clenched shut and his grip was so tight on the scarf. "Help me, please. I don't wanna die."

"I'm going to do the best I can," John assured him. He weaved his hand through the two lengths of the scarf and let his fingers brush against Gallifrey's head. "Feel that, Gal. I'm right here. Just look up at me."

Gallifrey's eyes opened and he timidly raised his head to look up into John's eyes. "Help me," he pleaded desperately. "Please save me, Dad."


	18. Search

A/N: A surprise update ... Just a short and quick little bit of fluff between Rose and Four... Because I wanted some fluff between Rose and Four!

~~oooOOOooo~~

It was dark. So dark. And cold. So very cold.

Rose's thumbnail was already bitten right up to the quick and so, with nothing left to gnaw at, she worked on worrying free the hangnail on the middle finger that had been bothering her for basically the whole day. The pain of it tearing free should've taken at least a little attention away from the worry about Gallifrey's late evening walkabout…

…It didn't.

All the pain did to her was make her wince and frown a little deeper with worry for her precious little man.

The Doctor watched as Rose's teeth moved to the thumb on her other hand and shook his head. With a tender movement removed her hand from her mouth and laced his fingers with hers. He drew her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles lightly. "We'll find him, Rose. I promise you."

Habit made her tug at his hand to draw her thumb back toward her mouth, and so she whimpered when he clicked his tongue and refused to release her hand.

"Romana," he called with his eyes locked on Rose. "I think we would be best served in splitting up for this search, what do you think?"

"I think a torch might be somewhat helpful too," Martha muttered with a squint of her eyes into the darkness. "Rose and I aren't Timelords with _superior biology and eyesight_ capable of seeing in the dark."

"Who made a claim like that," Romana asked with an indignant snort. "We can do no such thing."

"Well," The Doctor countered. "We are better equipped for enhanced low-light vision than our lovely human ladies, Romana."

"But we cannot see in the dark, Doctor." She let out a long sigh. "Really. Is that what you tell you companions, Doctor?"

"I have made no such claim, Romana." He caught two identical looks that argued without words against his assertion and slumped slightly. "At least not in _this_ incarnation."

"Oh I'm sure you've made similar claims to make yourself appear to be more special to each and every one of your human companions."

"I admit to nothing," he murmured under his breath. "And while we discuss this topic, my son is out wandering in nothing but his nightclothes." He heard Rose gulp in a deep breath and clutched a little tighter at her hand. "If my human self is in any way a gentleman…"

"He's the opposite of you," Romana supplied. "So the chances are _yes_ on that."

He shot her a glare. " _If_ he is a gentleman, then Gallifrey will be wearing an oversized jacket, and will therefore have coverage against this cold."

"How about we break into pairs, Doctor," Martha offered. "Romana and I can take the west side, and you and Rose can go East. We can meet up in the TARDIS – _your_ TARDIS – in a half hour?"

"That is a splendid idea, Martha," the Doctor crowed proudly. "I can see why I chose you to be my companion. We will meet in thirty minutes – by the Earth time standard."

Romana gave him a nod, but said nothing. She merely adjusted a small device on her wrist, which opened up to spray an arc of light in front of her, and then looked to Martha. "I have light," she said with a smile. "Never leave TARDIS without it."

The Doctor watched the pair walk away from them and tugged on Rose's hand. "Let's not waste any more time. Let's go find our son, shall we?"

She stepped closer to him as they walked hand in hand toward the thicket that led toward the forest. "Can you feel him," she queried softly.

"I can."

"And?"

The Doctor wasn't exactly sure how Rose might respond to the truth, but he wasn't prepared to lie to her. "It seems that Gallifrey has found himself a little excitement."

"Excuse me, _what_?"

He scratched at his hair and then adjusted the seat of his scarf on his shoulders. "There's a reason that I am not so panicked, Rose. Gallifrey is in good spirits."

"You're not makin' fun are you? Not just saying that to try and make me feel better?"

The Doctor was not at all impressed by that accusation. His voice was level when he answered. "He's my son."

As far as he was concerned, that's all that needed to be said on the topic.

Silence fell over the pair for a moment, and Rose began to suspect that she'd upset the Doctor. With a sigh, she lightly shook her hand to release his hold of it. He didn't. If anything, he held at her hand a little tighter.

"I understand," he began quietly. "It's been just you and Gallifrey for so long now. All you've had for his entire life is just the two of you."

"Yes," she breathed after a swallow.

"And I understand that it's difficult for you to believe that a man that is six removed from the one who fathered that incredible child." He kept his eyes to the front and paused for long enough to swallow over a dry tongue. "I can't expect you to fully embrace my desire to be the father that Gallifrey needs in his life."

"I do," she countered earnestly.

He shook his head. "You don't. At least not completely." He stopped walking and tugged her to a stop. He continued to hold onto one hand as the other ticked lightly at the other with his fingertips for a moment before he grasped at it to hold tightly. "But I vow to you, Rose, that I will do whatever you ask of me to prove that I can be a worthy husband and father to you and little Gallifrey." He looked down to her mid section only briefly before his eyes shifted to hers again. "And any other brilliant lives we create together."

Rose gasped.

"Me _or_ him," he clarified. "Or any of my incarnations for that matter. We'd be honoured."

Rose smiled a slightly embarrassed smile. "Be careful, Doctor. That sounds awfully like a proposal." She freed her hands of his and left him standing silently at the edge of the thicket to weave her way into the branches.

The Doctor frowned in confusion, but quickly shook it off as he made chase behind her. "Hasn't he already offered you marriage, Rose?"

"We touched on it after you told me I was expecting Gal," she admitted. "But at the time we were still … oh …" She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Anyway. We never really sat and really discussed it." She sighed. "We ran out of time, actually. Which is kind of upsetting for a Timelord, yeah?" She tried to give a laugh at the irony of it, but couldn't. All she could manage was a sniff. "We thought we had forever, and I promised you that. But," she stroked at her belly. "Gal was just making his presence known on my waistline when you and me got separated."

He moved in behind her and stroked both hands down her arms to take hold of her hands. He moved his chest into the light curve of her back and leaned down lightly toward her ear. "It's my vow as a Timelord of Gallifrey that we will never be apart again." He pressed a kiss to her temple. "No matter which incarnation - him _or_ me - I'll be there for you.'

She leaned back against his chest and drew his arms around her waist, one arm across her belly and the other across her collar. "Be there for Gal. That's all I ask."

"For the both of you," he promised in a breath against her hair. "You're both going to love Gallifrey."

"Gal?"

"I mean the _planet_."

She straightened and rolled her shoulder to give her the momentum to turn in his arms to query that, but found herself trapped. A quick rise of her head revealed the Doctor's hardened expression as he glared through the tree stand in front of him.

"Doctor?"

He released her quickly without looking at her and strode forward with quick and long strides.

"Doctor?"

He could hear Rose's voice becoming more panicked and held a hand out to ask for silence. Without a word he looked around, to the sky, the ground, the trees.

"Do you hear that," he queried softly.

"Hear what?"

"Exactly." He walked in a wide circle. "Nothing. There are no sounds. No insects. No rustle of wind in the trees. No movement of critters in the ground cover."

She tried to shield the concern in her voice. Maybe it's just a quiet night?"

He shook his head. "No. No matter how quiet it is, there's always something. Anything." He closed his eyes in inhaled deeply. He tasted the air and then exhaled again. "Absolutely nothing."

"What does it mean, Doctor?"

His eyes flashed and he quickly thrust his hand out toward her. "Hold onto me, Rose."

"What?" She grasped at his hand. "Why?"

In the very distance a low rumbling sound echoed throughout the forest. The Doctor tugged Rose against his chest and pulled her into a crevice between two strong tree trunks. "It should be over quickly, Rose. Don't be scared. I've got you."

"Why," she questioned with concern. "Whats happening?"

The rumbling drew closer. "Oh just a combination of radiated elastic strain seismic waves, frictional heating of the fault surface, and cracking of rocks." He looked down into her face and offered an apologetic smile. "An Earthquake."

"But Gal!"

"We'll find him, Rose. As soon as this passes we'll find him." He looked up as the trees only a short distance away started to shake. "Hold on. It's here."


	19. Cliffhanging

A/N: Oh, I nearly didn't make the quota today. I closed my laptop for a moment and decided to clean something up ... and then out came the big black garbage bag and the wardrobe got pulled open and got completely gutted with donations for Goodwill ... After three solid hours of purging, I have three big garbage bags of clothing and jackets to donate... And it appears plenty of room for me to get myself something pretty!

Two things also happened to stall this: A Blue Jays game and my glorious husband deciding to clean the bathroom ... with bleach ... lots of stinky bleach... Phew I can tell you my eyes are still burning and I'm actually terrified to go take a shower now incase my feet melt or something ... Naahhh... But the fumes were kind of strong and distracting. That said, if this looks like it went all wonky, then I'll stick with that excuse...

I certainly hope you enjoy.

I will get to each and every one of your comments, I will... I just get started writing and can't quite stop.

~~oooOOOooo~~~

Gallifrey's eyes opened and he timidly raised his head up to look into John's eyes. "Help me," he pleaded desperately. "Please save me, Dad."

John Smith froze. There was no way he heard that correctly.

"Gallifrey," he said in a soft and reassuring voice. "Just hold on, okay?"

Gallifrey clutched tighter at his scarf and nodded weakly. His terrified brown eyes peered helplessly around the multicoloured knitted yarn and he may as well have been hiding in it for how difficult it was to see those eyes.

John adjusted his hold on the tree branch, but didn't take his eyes off the child. "Stay calm. I'm going to get you up, okay? Just hold on tight."

Gallifrey inhaled such a shaking breath that his inhale pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth. "I'm scared, Dad. I wish I was brave enough not to be, but I'm really really scared."

Okay, that time he heard it crystal clear. He bit at his lip and slid out further from the ledge to try and reach any part of him. "It's okay to be scared," John said softly. "It's good to be scared. It makes you hang on that little bit tighter."

"I don't know how much longer I can hold on," Gallifrey whimpered. "It's so cold and my arms are sleepy."

"Then let's sing them a song, shall we?"

"What?"

"Sing a song, keep them awake."

Gallifrey tightened his grip on the scarf, and was able to move his head around it to give John a proper look. One that wasn't completely full of fear. "Are you _serious_?"

John winked as he pushed yet further over the edge and smiled at the youngster. "Never moreso, young man. What's your favourite tune right now?"

Gaffifrey offered John a frown of puzzlement. "I. I'm not sure that you'd know it."

"No?"

Gallifrey shook his head.

"Do you think I'm not up on the music that you kids listen to?" He reached his hand down and weaved it through the two lengths of the scarf to grab a firm hold of it in one fist. "Can you whistle?"

He nodded shortly as he lifted his eyes to watch John's hand move through the scarf.

"Well?" John asked. "Whistle me a happy tune."

Gallifrey pursed his lips and for a moment struggled to make a sound other than a wet breathy hiss. With his eyes on John's movements above him, he tried again. This time he managed to carve a tune through his lips. When the eight-count tune began to repeat, he softly began to sing the words of the song.

John smiled as Gallifrey softly sang his little song. He didn't much listen to the tune nor focus on the words of the song. His attention was on the precarious hang of the scarf on the tree and just how he was going to pull an eight year old boy up on a vertical plane with only one arm.

"If I hold on tight to one end," Gallifrey offered quietly. "And you hold tight to the other end…"

"That's not an option," John muttered. "I'm not going to take that risk."

"But…"

"Do you know any other tunes?"

"I'm getting tired."

"You just hold on," John pressed with urgency. "I'm going to have you up here in no time at all. You hear me?"

"You're not strong enough," Gallifrey half whispered. "Are you?"

"You bet I am."

"I'd be up by now if you were," he answered in a resigned tone of voice. "But that's okay, you know. You did your best."

"Don't say that," John whispered. "I promise you that I'll save you."

Gallifrey kicked a little on the wall to see if he could get any real purchase with his feet. Having lost both slippers when he fell, all he had were his cold bare feet on a rough cold soil wall. "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure," John answered with a smile as he continued to manoeuvre himself to get as deeply within the hole as possible.

"I'm so glad that I finally got to meet you, you know." He kicked a little at the wall and let himself swing just slightly on the scarf. "Mum's told me so much about you, and TARDIS and everything you both did together."

John's brows drew tightly together. "I don't understand."

"I didn't lie when I called you my hero," he continued as he lifted his eyes to John's. His little face broke out into a wide smile. "You are. Even if you can't save me tonight, this is the best night of my life. I'm so glad that I got to meet you and have at least one adventure with my dad."

"Why," John breathed sadly. "Why are you calling me your dad?"

"I love you." Gallifrey sniffed and smiled up at John. "My Daddy."

John's eye twitched

"I know you can't say it back, and I get that." He kicked off the wall again. He shifted the hold of his hand to be able to touch John's hand. He was able to grasp hold of his little finger. "But when you're my dad again, just know, okay? Just know that your little boy loved you every day of his life. Don't doubt it, okay? I love you." He grasped hard at John's little finger. "And tell mum. Tell her." His voice shook. "Tell her that I…"

"No!" John bellowed desperately as he hooked his foot around the tree and released his hand from it. "You can tell her yourself, Gal. I'm not letting you fall. I'm not going to let you down." He thrust his hand down to grasp at the scarf with both hands. "Just hold on, Son. Hold on tight. Daddy's got you."

John let out a desperate and agonized cry as he pulled hard on the scarf to try and haul little Gallifrey up over the ledge. The rough bark of the tree trunk cut deep into his ankle and he frantically hooked his other foot around it as he felt his grip on the tree begin to falter. His cry sounded out long and hot as he was able to pull and then shuffle back a little to lever himself with his knees on the floor to pull harder.

Finally, Gallifrey's head, and then his hand, emerged up over the edge of the ledge, and John stopped yelling out just long enough to inhale a breath. Then he belched out another cry, and Gallifrey's chest popped up over the edge. He scrambled at the uneven ground of the ledge and reached out to clutch at John's jacket.

"C'mon, Gal," John gritted through his teeth as he slid an arm around Gallifrey's back and used the last of his energy to pull the lad up over the edge and into his chest. "I've got you," he half cheered as he fell backward, wrapped both arms around Gallifrey's back and pulled him up tight against his chest. "I've got you."

Gallifrey hiccupped as he felt John's arms tighten around him. He dropped his face into the crook of John's neck and erupted into tears.

John panted hard as he slowly managed to pull himself up in a lean against the wall. He rocked the two of them gently as he cooed softly against his ear. "We did it, Gal," he whispered. "You and me. We came through."

Gallifrey shifted his head enough that he was no longer buried in the crook of John's neck. His head now rested against his shoulder and he shivered just slightly as he looked across John's chest into the darkness.

"Thank you," he whispered softly. "You saved me."

John inhaled a deep breath and stroked his fingers through Gallifrey's hair. "Something tells me that you've done the same for me."

"That's mum," he chuckled gently. "Me? I'm typically the one who needs saving."

John gave a relieved chuckle and continued to stroke tenderly at Gallifrey's head. His mouth quirked in a smile as the child practically purred underneath his hand at the gesture.

"You were so brave just now."

"I was a gigantic wuss," Gallifrey mumbled. "A big old crybaby wuss."

He shifted for comfort, but kept his hold on the child firm. "I don't know what a wuss is, young man, but I'm going to guess it means that you're brave."

Gallifrey chuckled. "Quite the opposite, actually."

"Then I don't like that word," he muttered. "And so I insist that you don't use it ever again – especially when describing yourself."

Gallifrey nodded, and then shivered against the cold. "Okay."

John felt Gallifrey shiver and winced as he belatedly realised that the child was wearing nothing but a pair of flannel pyjamas. He sat himself up straighter and began to tug his jacket from his shoulders. "You have to be cold, Gal. Here, take my jacket."

Gallifrey shook his head. "What, so _you_ can freeze to death?" He held John's jacket closed so that he couldn't remove it. "I'm better equipped to deal with the cold than you are so keep your jacket."

"I wouldn't be a gentleman if I didn't give you my jacket."

"I'm not a girl, so your chivalry really isn't necessary."

"Ahh. But you are a child, so it is most definitely necessary."

"Are we really arguing about this?"

"Indeed, Gal." John smirked. "And as the _adult_ here it is my duty to…"

"Oh by the Gods," Gallifrey moaned as he opened up John's jacket and wrapped himself up in it, remaining snuggled up to John's chest. "There, now we _both_ get our way, yeah?"

"The art of compromise."

Gallifrey chuckled.

"You are … an amazing child, Gallifrey Tyler."

"I get that from my dad."

"Oh?"

Gallifrey gasped and covered his mouth with his hand. "Oh. But don't tell my mum I said that. She claims sole responsibility for just how awesome I am."

John had to chuckle at that. "And how about your unrivalled humbleness?"

Gallifrey shrugged. "Oh. That's all me. Mum's always telling me that I am brilliant and wonderful, so all she's encouraging is me getting a swelled head, not an unpretentious nature."

"And you're doing such a good job at that," John remarked with a smile and a sigh as he settled himself more comfortably against the rock wall. "Are you comfortable?"

"So much so that I could go to sleep," he answered with a yawn. "And something tells me that we're not going to be getting out of here any time soon."

John let out a sigh and shook his head. "Too dark to try and find a way to get back up to the surface." He rolled his head on the rock to raise his chin high to look above. "It's safer for us to wait until sunrise."

"Oh, Mum's gonna be so mad."

"Frightened," he corrected softly. "Not mad."

"In my experience," Gallifrey muttered as he nuzzled in closer to John's chest and unashamedly pulled his arm around his shoulders. "They both elicit the same response in her." He sighed. "Which means either time out until I'm fifteen, a spanking, or complete disownment."

"That's rather dramatic."

Gallifrey grinned. "I certainly can be."

John's smile fell slightly. "Is that why you called me your dad earlier? A little drama you created to make me step up and save you?"

Gallifrey stilled, moving only to lift his thumbnail to his teeth to gnaw at it. "Is that what you think?"

John thought about that question for a moment. He then considered the small shivering boy buried underneath his jacket and snuggled into the itchy fabric of the vest covering his chest. He rubbed his thumb along Gallifrey's forehead and exhaled softly against his hair.

"What I _think_ , Gallifrey, is that you are someone that means much more to me than just a student of mine. I feel like you and I share something unique, a bond..."

"Disaster and panic and sharing the experience we just did will generally make that happen."

John shook his head. "No. I felt it before tonight. Back at the school." He huffed out another breath. "There's just something about you that…" Another exhale. "That sounds foolish, I know."

Gallifrey nestled just a little bit closer. "Nah. Not at all, really."

"Can I ask you something, Gal?" He felt the nod of a tiny head and continued. "Am I your dad?"

Gallifrey didn't raise his head. Instead he closed his eyes and listened to the steady beat of a singular heart against his ear. "For the answer to that you have to ask yourself if you've ever made love to my mum?" At John's gasp, he chuckled. "I do _know_ how babies are made, you know."

John shifted uncomfortably. "I see."

"So," Gallifrey queried. "Have you? Made love to my mum, I mean. Because if you did that, oh, about eight years and ten months ago, then yeah, the chances are pretty good that you are."

John exhaled a long and somewhat disappointed breath. "I only met your mother two days ago."

"Then I guess you have your answer, don't you?" He felt John's arm tighten just slightly across his shoulder and sensed his disappointment. "But you know. You don't have to actually be the one to sire a child to be that child's dad, you know."

"As long as the child is in your heart," John whispered somewhat sagely.

"Or hearts," Gallifrey whispered quietly to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Gallifrey said with a smile as he pushed himself from John's chest and drew himself up onto his knees. "You saved me," he said cheerfully. He shifted up to press a kiss against his father's temple, and put both hands on his chest and looked him in the eye. "Which means you're in my heart for all eternity."

John was speechless as Gallifrey shifted back down to snuggle under his jacket and lay against his chest once again. He lifted his hand to touch at the tingle in his temple left from a child's kiss. He looked down at the messy chestnut mop of hair of the sleepy child nestled against his chest and felt his heart shatter inside his chest.

He thought about the words of young Gallifrey that carried them throughout their entire evening together. He considered Gal's immeasurable hurt that he sought affection from another. He considered Gal's affirmation of him being a hero to the child. He considered the desperate and pleading look in the eyes of a child who needed no one else in the world except his father's hand to hold and pull him from danger.

A pain shot across the back of his eyes and he grit his teeth together to stop a cry of pain from erupting through his lips. He fought the dagger-like pain for a few seconds until it started to subside and then let his eyes open to look again at the little boy in his arms.

"Mr. Smith?"

John inhaled a wet sniff and wiped his fingers against his eyes. "Yeah?" he croaked.

"I'm tired. Can you tell me a story to help me fall asleep?" He yawned wide and relaxed a little heavier against John as his whole body began to relax in preparation to sleep. "You're a history teacher. I'm sure you could tell a hundred stories."

"And you're so clever," he began, "that I'm sure you already know them all."

"You'd be surprised."

John inhaled deeply and looked up at the stars. He smiled a wistful smile as a shooting star flashed across the skies. "How about I tell you a story about a fearless adventurer and the companion who meant the whole universe to him?"

Gallifrey yawned, one big enough to crack his little jaw. "Not a love story. I'm not a girl who wants to hear fairy tales."

"Oh, but this one has space travel, time machines, a man called the Doctor and his beautiful pink and yellow human companion." He could feel the stretch of the smile across Gallifrey's cheeks. "And it all begins with one word. Just one. One little word..."

"…Run."


	20. After the Quake

Sorry this is late. Real life pounced on me on Sunday and I got no time at all to write, and today ... well ... today threw me for a six and then some. What, with work, and then wanting to go all hulksmash on my son's school ... then I had to make my vote in the Federal Election today .. Blue Jays game in progress...

Phew! But I finally got a wee bit written to take me into the good stuff tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy this wee snippet. More tomorrow ...

~~oooOOOooo~~

The shaking of the ground beneath his feet went on for much longer than the Doctor had anticipated. Whilst he kept an impressive amount of focus on the shuddering woman in his arms, he did manage to analyze the shift of the Earth below his feet and determine that this wasn't a natural seismic event. The chances were remarkably high that the shaking of the ground at their feet was an impact quake from a rather poorly piloted craft…

…And a rather big one at that.

The thought of which made him frown a tight grimace. Oh, he had been expecting the Family to land at some point. He'd rather hoped that he had more time to prepare for their arrival, but, well. No sense in crying over a spilled bag of Jelly Babies now.

He released his hold on Rose and stepped back to look into her face.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded a rapid bounce of her head. Her eyes were wide and her jaw lengthened in shock.

"Yeah," she breathed almost breathlessly. "I just. I've never been in an Earthquake before. I didn't even know that we got them here."

"Oh," he replied on a long breath. "They do happen from time to time. Not often so great that you'd feel them, but they happen." He ran his hand through his hair and, realising that he'd lost his hat, began to search the ground for it. "This one wasn't a naturally occurring shift of the Earth's crust."

"I don't like the sound of that."

"No, neither do I," he muttered as he located his hat underneath a fallen branch. "But I while I say that the shake of the Earth at our feet was most unexpected, the cause for it isn't so much so."

Rose tilted her head and watched curiously as the Doctor used the inside of his jacket sleeve to brush the hat free of dust. "What is it, Doctor?"

He frowned in upset as he looked at a large tear in the hat, but then shrugged at he put it on his head and turned to face her. "Can you notice that it's torn?"

She laid one arm across her belly and to support her elbow as she rested her chin on her fist and checked him over. "Well," she began in a voice filled with amusement. "I think the tuft of curly hair sticking out of it hides the tear quite nicely."

He moaned in disappointment and whipped it off his head. "Delightful."

Rose gave him a tongue-touched smile as she strode by him to walk deeper into the woods. "You are, aren't you?"

He hooked her hand with his. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To find my son," she answered immediately as she tugged her hand free of his. "And, yes, I know it's dangerous, but I don't care."

"You're right," he called after her. He picked up his stride to take up his place at her side. "It's very dangerous, and we should probably return to the TARDIS and have her do an analysis of the area to ensure that…"

"No," she interrupted hotly.

He coughed in disbelief. He wasn't usually interrupted so harshly. "What was that?"

"No," she repeated as she navigated her way over the top of a fallen branch that was big enough for her to have to press her hands into it and pull herself over it. "A negative answer to a decision. Used to indicate that something is quite the opposite of what it being specified."

He easily walked his long legs in a single stride over the fallen branch that Rose had just crossed. "And with that answer it becomes quite clear that you've spent entirely too much time travelling at my side."

"Then if you think that, perhaps we should split up."

He gagged. "What?"

"You can go back to the TARDIS," she continued. "Get her to have a bit of a looksee at what's happening, and I'll keep up the search for my dear little eight year old boy who is at ground zero of an Earthquake that just took out half the forest." She shuddered and then hiccupped.

He sensed her sudden shift in mood as the release of adrenaline started to wear off and return her to reality. He reached for her hand, but only managed to brush his fingers against hers. "Rose, he's gonna be okay."

She looked at him with terrified and watering eyes. "I have to find him," she pleaded. "I can do it alone, but I'd really prefer it if you were with me." She shook her head and covered her mouth in her hands. "I don't know if I could deal with seeing him hurt."

"We'll find him _together_ ," he vowed. "We aren't splitting up."

"You're not telling me he'll be okay," she said inside a worried hiccup as she lunged sideways to fist his lapels tightly in her hands. "You're not telling me that he's okay!"

He covered her hands in his. "Rose. You can't panic."

"Then tell me he's okay," she demanded tearfully. "You can feel him. You _have_ to tell me that my baby boy is okay. Please Doctor."

Oh, he could feel his son. He could. He could feel that his son was alive and unhurt, but he could also feel the sheer terror that his child was feeling right now…

…But, By Rassilon, he couldn't tell her that.

"He's okay," he vowed gently. "And he's going to be okay." He raked his fingers through her hair, one stroke, and then another, and then paused to guide her face toward his. He pressed his forehead against hers and whispered with breath against her lips. "We're going to bring him home. Home to you, home to me. Home to _us_."

She exhaled a shaking breath, but all she could do was nod lightly.

"Our son," he whispered. "Will come home."

A whirring sound caught his attention, and the Doctor let his eyes flick toward his left side. The was a red light, a flash, and then the crack of splintering wood.

"K-9," he called. "Is that you, boy?"

"Affirmative, Master," K-9 replied in a static-filled voice as he lazered another piece of debris on the ground. "Mistress Romana sent me to look for you."

The Doctor released Rose's face and sighed when she walked in to nestle in against his chest. "Are Romana and Martha safe?"

"Affirmative, Master," he repeated. "In the TARDIS. Mistress Romana sensed the seismic disturbance and sheltered in the TARDIS with Mistress Martha. Analysis of the disturbance is complete."

"Atmospheric breach of a large craft," the Doctor ventured dryly. "I'm thinking Spodetune?"

If K-9 could've laughed, he probably would have. Instead, the robot dog let out a ragged static sound and then spoke. "Origin is not yet established, Master. But we have confirmation that a craft from out of this solar system and out of this time has indeed made a landing."

"If you could call it a _landing_ ," he groused. "Crashed into the ground is far more accurate."

"Mistress Romana is tracing the epicentre of the seismic disturbance. She requests that you and Mistress Rose return to the TARDIS for your own safety."

"No," Rose growled. "I'm not leavin' Gal. I'm gonna find him."

"The TARDIS can locate the child," K-9 informed her. "Master Gallifrey's biodata is unique."

"I'm not leavin' him out here," Rose insisted as she pulled from the Doctor and stalked into the forest. She spoke over her shoulder to both of them. "You go back to the TARDIS. I'm stayin' out here until I find my son."

"Mistress should return," K-9 said with red eyes watching as Rose walked away. "Until we can locate the craft."

"Head back to the TARDIS, K-9," the Doctor ordered on a quiet voice. "Have Romana lock the TARDIS on my signature, and track our movements. When she feels the time is right, have her pilot the TARDIS to our location."

"Master?"

The Doctor winced as he continued to feel the terror across the link with his child. "If Gallifrey needs any kind of medical assistance, K-9. I don't want to waste time."

"And you, Master?"

He dropped his chin to look through his fringe at Rose's retreating form. "I'm staying with Rose."

"Affirmative, Master." K-9 rolled a couple of feet and then paused. "Young Master Gallifrey, is he fine?"

"He will be," the Doctor managed weakly. "He will be."

K-9 said nothing further as he rolled away. The Doctor looked at K-9's retreating form and let out a worried breath. "Rassilon let him be okay."

"Doctor," Rose called from the other side of the thicket ahead of him. "Doctor!

"K-9, wait," Doctor called as he launched into a run after Rose. "Follow me!"

"Affirmative, Master," K-9 called back as he spun in place to follow after the Doctor. He let his laser blow apart fallen branches to clear his pathway. It was a sound that made the Doctor flinch just slightly as he ran, but wasn't enough to make him stumble.

Both man and tin dog emerged from the thick bushy edge of the forest to a dark and open field. Rose was only about two dozen feet ahead of them. She was on her knees in the grass yelling into the ground.

"Rose," the Doctor called with worry. "My precious girl, what are you doing?"

Rose turned on her knees in the dirt and scrambled to her feet. She called to him as she ran across the field and was in obvious panic when she finally reached him. "Doctor," she begged as she fisted at the lapels of his jacket and tugged him forward. "They're down there. We have to get them out."

"Down where," The Doctor queried as he allowed himself to be forcibly dragged along.

Rose kept one hand on his jacket, and stalked forward, letting her now free arm swing purposefully at her side. "There's this hole. It's a big one. And I can hear someone down there." She stopped walking and looked imploringly into the Doctor's face. "We have to find a way to get to them, Doctor. We do."

That spurred him to move, and the Doctor tore himself out of Rose's grasp to rapidly approach the hole. He skidded in the dirt as the opening of the whole appeared out of nowhere in the darkness, and gaped at the sheer size of the chasm before him.

"Oh by Rassilon," he breathed under his breath. "How can anyone possibly survive a fall into this?"

Rose fell to her knees at his side and leaned over into the hole. She held her hair off her face with one hand as she used the other to cup the side of her mouth. "Gallifrey! John! Can you hear me?"

The returning echo of her own voice made her shudder, but it was followed by a quiet call.

"Miss Tyler. It's John Smith. We're both okay. We somehow managed to find ourselves on a ledge…"

"And Gal," she called down with worry. "Is he okay?"

"Sleeping right now," John answered with actual amusement in his tone. "Seems he enjoys a good tale of fun and adventure." He paused, and as though realizing he forgot something, quickly spluttered his next words. "Gallifrey is fine, Miss Tyler. A little frightened, but perfectly fine."

"We're coming to get ya," she yelled down. "Just hold on and keep my boy safe."

K-9 rolled to the edge of the hole. His ears spun and his head moved up and down as he analysed the hole in front of them. "Sink hole, Master. I cannot approximate the depth, but it is at least eighty metres in diameter."

"And the two people stranded down there?"

"Heat signatures show two people, both with strong vital signs."

The Doctor exhaled in relief. "How far down are they?"

"Approximately twenty metres, Master." He paused and scanned the sinkhole's edges. "Not a climbable wall, but the TARDIS does have equipment that we can use to abseil down and retrieve the young master."

"Then go," the Doctor ordered sharply. "Have Romana pilot the TARDIS to the location. We'll utilize her winch and pull them up." He watched as the dog started slowly and growled. "Now, K-9. Make haste. That's my son down there."

"Affirmative, Master," the dog called back with an affronted shift in his metallic voice. "Won't be long."

The Doctor fell to his knees at Rose's side and touched his hand to her shoulder. "It won't be long, Rose. We'll get him up here safe and sound."

She nodded slowly. "And I'm going to hug him so hard I'll crush the life out of him," she whimpered. "I'm supposed to be mad at him and ive him heck so he won't ever do this again, but all I want to do is hug him and never let go."

The Doctor put his arm across her shoulder and pressed his lips against her temple. "Me too, Rose. Me too."

~~oooOOOooo~~

John Smith let his chin fall, after having held his head high to speak to Rose Tyler up at the top of the hole. His chin softly met with the soft, yet sweaty, hair of the young boy, and he exhaled a long breath. His exhale blew a breath across Gallifrey's hair, and the boy sighed contentedly as he shifted against John's chest.

John leaned his head down to press his cheek against Gallifrey's head and felt his heart shatter again when the youngster giggled and then sighed again in his sleep.

"My son," he spoke gently against Gallifrey's head. "You're my precious boy. I just know you are."

He looked up at a strange and haunting groaning and wheezing sound from above his head, and frowned at the flashing lights the bounced off the walls of the hole, brightening as the sound up above increased, peaked, and then died off completely.

"What in the name of our Lord was that?"

"TARDIS," Gallifrey muttered in his sleep. He wriggled a little to seek more warmth and comfort, sighed, and went quiet again.

John chuckled. "Even when you're asleep your gob doesn't stop," he mused with quiet amusement as he stroked at Gallifrey's head and his smile fell. "I know you're my son."

There was a sudden dusting of dirt falling onto them from above, and John Smith wiped it from his face. He kept his eyes high and watched for the rescuers to find a way to them.

"And when I get back to Farrington, I'm going to find out just who Rose Tyler is and _how_ it is that she bore my son."


	21. Indecent Exposure

A/N: Thank you so much for all of your brilliant and wonderful and warm and awesome comments on this tale. I am so thrilled that you're enjoying it as much as I enjoy writing it!

It was kind've hard for me to get out a chapter this evening. My heart is currently breaking for my little Time Lord who is learning the hard way just how cruel children can be. And they are. And let me tell you, as a parent there is no pain greater than your little boy sitting in the rain and sobbing because of how mean kids can be. Lots of snuggles for my own little Gallifrey tonight.  
I hope that this chapter reads as I intended it to ... I'm not in fine form tonight...

I hope you enjoy!

~~oooOOOooo~~

John Smith didn't exactly have a lot of time to ponder his question of just who, exactly, Rose Tyler was before she descended upon him. He figured he might have some time to consider things. Surely she had to return to school and locate some villagers to assist her. Judging by the distance that he recalled walking with Gallifrey, Rose shouldn't have returned for at least another hour.

Yet, here she was with a rope tied around her belly, kicking off the wall and descending in a comfortable and controlled manner. She confidently descended the wall like a tree-man scaling safely out of a tree …

…Wearing only her undergarments.

John Smith gasped in shock and – even though the youngster was well and truly slumbering – he covered Gallifrey's eyes with a cup of his hand.

"Miss Tyler," he spluttered as Rose touched her toes to the broken ground at her feet. He closed his eyes and shifted his head to the side as he raised his hand to his face. "Dignity, please."

She gave him a frowned expression of confusion. "What?"

He half peeked through the cracks of his fingers. "Where is your clothing?"

Rose looked down at herself with a raised brow. Dressed in black tights and an off-white one piece pantsuit with long knickers that went well below her knee – with just the cutest amount of lace at the cuffs – Rose Tyler couldn't see what the problem was. She adjusted the harness that the Doctor had so tenderly strapped around her waist and thighs and gave John Smith a somewhat petulant look. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"You're. You. You're in your underthings," he spluttered uncomfortably.

Rose took another look down at herself and shrugged. "Well I wasn't going to climb down the wall in that bloody dress, now, was I? I've worn less than this to the market," she said with a sigh as she lifted her eyes to the Doctor as he touched ground beside her.

"Is everything okay, Rose," he queried gently as he let his eyes scan for any potential scuffs, scrapes or bruises she may have received on her short descent down the wall.

"I'm fine," she chipped out with a roll of her eyes. She then smiled and pointed to John. "Seems like himself here is a bit of a prude."

The Doctor lifted a brow and then lifted his head as he tugged lightly on the rope to ask for more slack. "Howso?"

"He thinks I'm immodestly dressed."

The Doctor took a moment to rake his eyes appreciatively up and down her form and then licked at his lip as he snatched his eyes away. "Well. You _are_ in the period equivalent of your bra and panties."

Rose peeped and immediately, subconsciously, tried to cover herself. "Why didn't you tell me," she grit out.

"Martha did mention it as I recall," the Doctor offered. He put on a feminine tone of voice and did his best to adopt the accent of Martha Jones. "I would go in the TARDIS and put on a proper pair of pants if I were you, Rose. You'll give John Smith a heart attack if he sees you dressed like that." The Doctor indicated her clothing with a wave of his hand. "In 1913, Rose Tyler, why you are simply scandalous in that outfit." He shrugged and went back to his natural voice. "Or more accurately the _lack of_ an outfit."

"You know," she muttered with a point of her finger at him as she dropped into a crouch in front of John Smith. "It should be somewhat unnerving that you're able to very believably imitate Martha's voice like that. Shame it isn't." She held her palms up in front of John Smith and flicked her fingers in a request for her child. "Can I have Gal, please?"

John's arm tightened around the child's shoulder and he gave Rose a bit of a disdainful purse of his lips. "Gallifrey's asleep right now."

"And he'll go right back to sleep again once we've gotten him safely above ground." Rose flicked her fingers again. "Now. May I please have my son?"

"He's really quite comfortable," John offered softly. "Perhaps you can give me the rope and I'll carry him above ground."

Rose frowned.

The Doctor grunted. "I'll take the lad above ground," heoffered in a firm voice that suggested no arguments. "Now hand the child to his mother so she can reassure herself of his wellbeing, please, Mr. Smith."

John looked imploringly up into Rose's face as she walked on her knees toward them and touched lightly at the fabric covering her child's head. "Don't take him from me," he whispered with obvious hurt.

Rose lifted her eyes quickly. "What did you just say?"

"Nothing. Just. Just forget it." There was a furrow in her brow that John found remarkably adorable and he couldn't help but lift his hand to smooth it over with his thumb. "Don't frown," he advised gently. "It doesn't do anything except give you wrinkles."

Rose sighed with agreement as she opened John's jacket to reveal her sleeping child's face underneath. She smiled at the warmth of a sleeping body pressed close to another as it radiated out into the bitter cool of the evening. "There's my little man," she cooed. "All safe and sound."

Gallifrey mumbled and groaned, and then raised a little hand to pull the jacket back closed over him. "Five mo … mins .. mum. Cold. Night night. Night. Sleep." He yawned a jaw-cracking gasp and then nestled further against John's chest. "S'warm in here."

"I told you," he stated smugly. "Gallifrey is most comfortable, and it would be kinder for us to not disturb him than to have to wake him up. It's quite chilly out, we risk him catching a chill."

The Doctor looked a trite territorial as he crouched in front of John Smith with a thick tartan blanket in his arms. "Which is why I brought this down from the TARDIS," he assured him darkly. "It'll give the lad more warmth than your jacket will."

Rose spoke the Doctor's name in warning and held her hands out for the blanket.

The Doctor handed the blanket over, but kept his eyes locked tight on John. "Now be a good man and release the child, will you, please? His mother's been in quite the state this evening since he went missing – as I am sure you can understand."

"Perfectly," John snapped back with equal venom in his voice.

Rose rolled her eyes as the two men gave each other their own unique versions of the stank-eye glare. She thread her hands into John's jacket to reach in for her child. "Come on, baby. Time for bed."

Gallifrey murmured something indecipherable. He then noisily slapped his tongue to the roof of his mouth and shook his head as he buried himself deeper into John's chest. "Comfy _here_."

"Gal, come on."

Gallifrey sniffed, and then sneezed, and then shifted himself in an attempt to turn his back to his mother in defiance of her wishes for him to move. The tight quarters of John's jacket and the awkward positioning of them on the ground made the attempt virtually impossible, and within short time, Gallifrey found himself falling backward across John Smith's crossed legs.

He blinked up into the sky overhead a moment to let his eyes focus, and then shifted his gaze between the three faces that looked down on him. It didn't take long for Gallifrey to squeak and then shift off John's knees to embrace his mother. "Mum! Oh I'm so glad to see you." He pouted a poke of his bottom lip outward. "Are you mad at me?"

She sighed as her arms came around his little back and she pulled him close to her. "I _should_ be, Gal. I really should." She exhaled a shuddering breath. "But I'm just so glad that you're okay."

"I'm okay because Mr. Smith protected me," he answered with a look of pride toward John, who still sat in the same position against the wall as he had when the child was sleeping on him. "He's my hero, mum."

"Well," Rose muttered in a voice that sounded like she was speaking with a mouth full of cotton balls. "Then that makes him _my_ hero, too, doesn't it?"

The Doctor draped the blanket over Gallifrey and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "And just what does that make me, then?"

"A mad man with a box?"

"A mad man with a box who loves you dearly," he corrected tenderly, much to the shock of the scandalously clad Rose Tyler, who could only respond with a stunned gasp.

Gallifrey's eyes lit up. "Dad!"

The Doctor tilted his head to one side and opened his arms wide. "Gallifrey! Come here you little scamp."

Gallifrey was all giggles as he struggled out of his mother's hold and flew into the waiting arms of the Doctor. "Dad. Oh, I had an _adventure_! A real true adventure!"

The Doctor wrapped the blanket tightly around the babbling child as Gallifrey excitedly recounted the evening's events. He gave an occasional nod and sound of interest as he secured a harness around Gallifrey's waist.

"And Mr. Smith says I was brave, Dad." He held both arms up to flex his muscles. "So brave."

"Very brave," John agreed with a wink and a smile.

"I'm very sure you were, son," the Doctor replied with his own proud smile as he fastened the final tie and pulled Gallifrey toward him to attach the child's harness to his own. "And now, my fearless adventurer. Are you ready to have another one with your old man?"

Gallifrey looked up and then grinned. "Oh yes. Yes I am." He giggled a throaty laugh. "Last one unhitched has to make the banana split!"

"You are on, you precocious little Time Tot."

"You don't stand a chance you Timey Wimey Old Fart."

Rose's whole expression was lengthened in disbelief as the Doctor and Gallifrey gave each other friendly taunts about who was going to be the l-o-o-o-ser as the Doctor climbed them both up the wall. She twisted her head to look at John and let out a breathless cough. "Well. I know for sure where Gallifrey gets his _certifiably insane_ gene from."

"Not from his _father_ ," John remarked rather coolly.

"Oh," Rose breathed with amusement as she turned herself to face John, who was still seated on the ground. "He definitely gets it from his father."

"We don't have insanity in my bloodline," John said with a straight face and an equally straight voice.

Rose pulled a tiny torch from a pocket on her harness. "Well then," she said with a smile. "I guess that means that your kids aren't going to be as insane as mine, doesn't it?" She watched as his eyes followed hers with every shift she made in front of him, and tied hard not to let the intensity in his eyes pierce into her like it used to. "Now. I'm just going to check you out and make sure you don't have any injuries before I try and get you up there."

He maintained his stare. "Do what you need to do."

Rose dropped her eyes from his in an attempt to escape that look, but unfortunately found herself having to capture them again for her examination. "Hold still," she ordered him in a croaking voice as she cupped his chin in her hand and brought the light up to his eyes. "I just need to make sure that you didn't bang your head or anything."

"I didn't," he answered quietly.

"I need to make sure."

He swallowed as Rose held the mini-torch to his eyes and swept the light across his pupils. "Miss Tyler?"

"Pupil response seems to be fine," she muttered clearly, even though her bottom lip was clenched between her teeth. "Do you have any pain anywhere that I should know about?"

"In my chest," he answered softly with an analytical tip of his head to one side.

That made Rose gasp in a deep breath. She pressed her hands to his chest. "That's not good. What happened? Are you breathing okay?"

He took her wrists in his hands and held them against his chest. "Miss Tyler. Tell me. Is Gallifrey my son?"

Rose inhaled sharply, but shook her head. "John. No. He's the Doctor's son."

"But he's nothing like him."

Rose expelled a sharp laugh. "Oh. He is. He is much more his father than he is me."

"He's exactly like _me_."

Rose snatched her hands from John's grip and shook her head as she shuffled backwards from him. "For you to be his father," she answered on an intoned voice, "then you and I would have needed to have known each other almost nine years ago." She lifted her eyes to his. "We met two days ago."

"Then why does it feel like you and I have known each other for a lifetime?"

"Kindred spirits, perhaps," she offered weakly.

He snatched her hand in his and weaved his fingers through hers. He frowned as he looked to where they were joined. "Perfect fit," he mused quietly. After a swallow he raised his eyes to hers. He looked quite pained. "Why is it a _perfect fit_? Why?"

"I don't know," she answered with a huff as she shook her hand to free it from his grasp. "Hands are made to hold, of course they fit."

"All you need," he whispered to himself. "Is a hand to hold."

"All _you_ need," she corrected quickly, "is to get out of this hole and return to your worried _girlfriend_ who's waiting for you back at the school."

He winced at her use of the term _girlfriend_ , but snatched her hand back again. "Who are you to me," he asked desperately. "You're _something_ to me. I know you are."

Rose shook her head and tore her hand from his. "If I was something – if I ever meant _anything_ to you – then you'd remember."

John saw the misting of her eyes and felt the pain in her voice. "Rose…"

"And do you? Remember, I mean?"

"I don't," he admitted sadly.

"Then I guess not, right?"

"But…"

She quickly cleared her throat and composed herself. "Yes. _But_. Off that. The important thing is that we have to get you back above ground and into the arms of the woman you …" she winced as though agonized. "that you _care_ for."

"I've actually got bigger concerns right now," he corrected.

"All of which are unfounded," Rose snapped sharply. Her heart shattered inside her chest before she could utter her next words, but she managed to find the strength to follow through. "Gallifrey and I are _nothing_ to you. He is not your son, and I am not a shag from your wild days that you don't remember."

"That's quite crass, Miss Tyler."

"Well I'm from the estates in London," she answered back with a shrug. "Wasn't exactly raised in the posh area of town."

"Neither was I," he answered back with a curl in his brow. "I did my own time in London-town."

Rose raised her head quickly as movement from above suggested that the Doctor was on his way back down. She smiled warmly at the swing of the scarf underneath his plaid-covered bum. "My time in good old London Town was spent with the Doctor." She spoke wistfully as the Doctor touched to the ground and gave her a smile. "My Doctor."

The Doctor chuckled as he flicked on a light he had strapped to his forehead. "Look what the TARDIS gave our little Gallifrey, then."

"She couldn't give it to us?"

"You would think so, wouldn't you," The Doctor muttered darkly. "Considering we were descending into a deep and dark hole in the ground."

"She's picking favourites, I see."

"I will have words and sentences and paragraphs, and perhaps an entire novella with that interfering and petulant girl of ours." He looked at John still seated on the floor. "Is he going to sit in the dirt all night, or are we going to take him to the surface?"

Rose gad a wide grin on her face as she turned to face John. "Up and at them, Mr. Smith."

John's face was pale and long as he looked at the image of Rose in front of him. Backlit by the light shining from on the Doctor's head, Rose's body seemed to glow, ethereal, magnificent and gold. She was a goddess in front of him.

A brilliant pain shot through his mind that threw him forward out of his seat and had him dry retching on his hands and knees. Two words exploded from within his chest, followed by a soul-shattering cry of agony that echoed and bounced mercilessly off the dirt and stone walls surrounding him. He repeated those words one more before he fell onto his face in an unconscious heap on the dirt.

"Bad Wolf."


	22. neural Implosion

A/N: Thanks again for all of your most wonderful comments. I'm thoroughly exhausted today and only had 90 mins writing time today ... I certainly hope it makes sense and that you enjoy ...

~~oooOOOooo~~

Gallifrey buzzed with all the annoyance of a gnat as the Doctor laid John Smith on a gurney in the medical bay of the TARDIS. The young boy's panic was obvious. The Doctor didn't need a link to know that. He could feel that nervous energy zapping at him like little sparks of electricity.

"Is he okay," Gallifrey queried for the tenth time since the Doctor and Rose had lifted him up out of the hole. "What happened? Is my Dad going to be alright?"

"He'll be fine," the Doctor answered for the tenth time, perhaps with a little more frustration than the previous nine times. "And I'd be able to assess his condition a little better, Gal, if you weren't tangling yourself in my ankles like a hungry cat looking for food."

Gallifrey looked a little hurt by that comment, but gave a nod of understanding. "Yes. Right. Sorry." He thumbed to the side wall where Martha and Rose stood quietly with worry. "I'll go over there, then, and try to be less of a bother."

Ordinarily the Doctor would rather emphatically agree with that option. He certainly didn't like having a short little person buzzing around him as he tried to work. But Gallifrey was deeply worried and needed the assurance that John was going to be fine. Being shuttled off into a corner to be _out of the way_ was only going to upset the child further, and the thought of that fractured a chasm inside both his hearts as big as the one he just pulled him from.

"Gallifrey," he called in an apologetic tone. "I could use a hand if you'd like to help me.

Gallifrey's eyes lit up. "Really?"

"That is," the Doctor said with a light teasing in his tone, "if you don't mind playing nurse."

Gallifrey skipped over eagerly. "There is nothing wrong with a boy being a nurse," he chirped. "As long as you don't want to put me in a skirt."

"My dear boy, there is nothing wrong with a man wearing a skirt," the Doctor replied back with a grin. "Why right across history men have worn the equivalent of skirts and dresses and have been viewed as mighty warriors and heroes."

"Still don't wanna wear one," Gallifrey declared with a wide grin. He held out his hand I a request for the stethoscope hanging around the Doctor's neck in place of his scarf. "I'll take that."

The Doctor arched a brow as he pulled the contraption from around his neck and handed it over. "Do you know how it's used, Young Gallifrey?"

Gallifrey shrugged as he looked it over his neck. "Press the bell over the location of the heart and listen, pretty much. Not exactly rocket science, is it?"

"No," he mused with a rub at his chin. "I guess it isn't."

Gallifrey stood at the head of the gurney and put his hands on the pillow either side of John's head. "So is he gonna be okay, then?"

The Doctor closed his eyes and pressed the fingers of his right hand to John's right temple. After a moment, he exhaled a breath and nodded. "Looks like he suffered your standard neural implosion event," he said with a sigh.

"Well that doesn't exactly sound like a walk in the park," Martha said with a shudder.

"It's really not," Rose answered her with a pained look on her face. "I watched him go through one of those when he regenerated." Her wince morphed to an expression of hope. "Do you think he's regenerated back into Timelord?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm afraid not." His brow arched as Gallifrey put the earpieces of the stethoscope in his ears and leaned over John's head to press the bell against his chest. With a chuckle, the Doctor walked behind the child and picked him up by the hips to give him the height needed to accomplish his task. "You doubt my opinion, Nurse Tyler?"

"Never hurts to get a second opinion," he answered back as he awkwardly shifted the bell of the stethoscope from one side of John's chest to the other.

"And your opinion is?"

"One heart," he sighed in disappointment. "Okay. You can put me down now."

The Doctor only lifted him higher so that he could seat his little butt on the edge of the gurney mattress. He pointed at a monitor scrolling with information. "Keep an eye on that. If you see mauve, let me know."

"Because mauve is bad," Gallifrey reminded himself as he circled his finger at the screen. "But blue and squiggly is okay, yeah?"

"That's not _squiggly_ ," the Doctor chided gently. "That's circular Gallifreyan. _Our_ language."

Gallifrey hummed thoughtfully. "Yes. I figured as much," he breathed as he leaned forward to stop the scrolling and point out a couple of symbols. "And I'm guessing _that_ is the Gallifreyan equivalent of a Windows progress bar."

The Doctor was aghast at the comparison. "Are you suggesting that this magnificent machine. A TARDIS. A ship that travels throughout all time and space with technology that the whole of humankind couldn't even imagine, and you compare her to _Windows_?"

"Sorry Auntie TARDIS," Gallifrey droned slowly with a slouch in his shoulders. "I promise to never, ever, ever, ever, ever again compare you to the _primitive_ technologies of Sol III. And if I do, then you have full permission to spank the bottom of Gallifrey Peter Tyler." He looked to the Doctor with a purse in his lips. "Because I really do need to be specific on the _who_ , just in case there's another Gallifrey out there…"

"Unlikely," the Doctor interrupted flatly.

"Oh, you never know," Gallifrey chirped. He folded his arms across his chest. "One day my name will be famous, you know."

"Famous across the entire universe," the Doctor agreed with a dramatic sweep of his arm through the air.

"Infamous more likely," Romana muttered as she pulled the monitor toward her and analysed the results from the scan of John's unconscious form.

Gallifrey leaned in to the Doctor in a rather conspiratorial manner. "Do you ever get the feeling that she just …"

"Just _what_?" she snapped out threateningly as her gaze pierced into him

He held his hands up innocently. "Nothing. Oh. Nothing at all. Don't mind me. Just musing, really." He let out a dramatic sigh. "I've never met a Timelady before, so you really do have to appreciate my struggle in determining the expected protocols of conversation between a child and an elder…"

"Who are you calling an _elder_?"

"…And it goes without saying, really, that a little Earth-born and raised boy like me is going to mess it up from time to time." He scratched at his dust-filled mop of hair. "Can't help it, me. _Well_. Maybe if I actually let my brain actually process what I'm trying to say without my gob just running with it, then I wouldn't, yeah?"

"You might want to work on that, then," Romana advised coolly. "Perhaps the Academy will train that out of you."

Gallifrey put his hands on his hips and leaned forward in a classic brat move. "Good thing I'm not going there, then."

"I've already had you enrolled. You begin in an Earth month."

Gallifrey's eyes shot wide with horror. "Oh, I am not."

"You are."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Both of you," the Doctor interrupted impatiently. "That's enough. Really, Romana. When I consider how simply brilliant you were at the Academy… Well, you behave no more mature than him."

Romana sniffed and slid her eyes to the Doctor. "As you indicated earlier. I am a child myself."

"When it suits you, obviously."

"I'm also _female_."

"Indeed."

Romana moved to the computer. "K-9 and I have completed the analysis of the immediate area surrounding where we believe the epicentre of the seismic wave."

The Doctor's voice quietened slightly. "And?"

"It's as suspected," she answered in a cagy manner without taking her eyes from the Doctor.

"Earlier than hoped."

"And I'm sure you're aware of my opinion on the matter."

The Doctor nodded. "And your opinion has been taken into consideration."

"And I will trust that you will go with my opinion."

Rose looked between the two Timelords with her left brow arched in a high and suspicious manner. "What're you to on about?"

"Oh nothing," the Doctor immediately answered with wide eyes and an equally wide grin. "Romana is quite the little scientist. She did quite well at the academy studying the – oh what you would call _Earth_ _Sciences_. You know: Seismology, geology, Aerology, Geochronology, stomatology, paleontology , sedimentology, Oh, if it ends in _ology_ then Romana here was absolutely brilliant at it."

Rose gave her an honest and friendly smile. "I wish I was like all of you," she sighed. "Doctors, Scientists and…" she looked at her child and smiled with awe. "Just brilliant." She inhaled hard and looked back to the Doctor and Romana. "Not really that clever, me."

"Oh yes you are," Gallifrey cooed in a manner far too like his father's Tenth incarnation. "You're brilliant."

Martha bumped her with her shoulder. "And him," she indicated the man on the bed. "He seems to think that too."

Rose exhaled softly and let her eyes trace John Smith's boyishly handsome face. "What's wrong with him?"

"Yes," the Doctor muttered quickly. "We forgot about him, didn't we?" He clapped his hands and thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. "As I mentioned earlier, it looks as though Mr. Smith experienced what we Timelords call a neural Implosion."

Rose swallowed thickly. "What causes that?"

"Many things can cause that, my precious girl," the Doctor said with a smile. "More often than not, when there is a problem with the regeneration, a Timelord can experience one. The sudden recall of a suppressed memory package – oh that'll cause one." He kept his hands in his pockets and shrugged lightly. "And it's quite possible in this case, actually, that the bonds that the two of you share with his Time Lord self might have caused some memory leakage that resulted in the neural implosion."

Rose gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. "We? Me and Gal? We hurt him?"

"I really wouldn't be deeply concerned, Rose," Romana offered with a sharp look to the Doctor. "In _human_ terms, what Mr. Smith experienced was a basic cephalgia event."

"Hold on," Martha queried with her face in a frown of confusion as she waved her hand. "You're telling me, that this _neural implosion_ thing that the Doctor will sometimes suddenly succumb to … is just your basic _headache_?"

"I'd hardly call it _basic_ ," the Doctor challenged. "This poor man was rendered unconscious by it."

Martha chuckled. "A _headache_?"

"Yes," the Doctor muttered with just a smidge of petulance. "A headache."

Rose approached the bed and touched her fingers to John's hand. His hand twitched to her touch, and then his fingers stretched and flexed in search of hers. "And you think that Gal and I caused this _headache_ of his?"

"It's more than just a headache, Rose."

"I know," she said with a nod of her head. "I _know_ what happens to him when his head goes all crazy." She stroked the back of her fingers along his cheek and jaw, sighing when he shifted to her touch. "That Christmas after his regeneration. I thought I'd lost 'im, you know. He had a new face, a new body. He was so different…"

The Doctor threaded his arm across her shoulder and tugged her close to him.

"And then he just went crazy," she continued. "He practically crashed the TARDIS. And then he just collapsed. Was out for nearly the whole day."

"But I came out of it," the Doctor whispered against her hair. "And I'll get out of this one unharmed, too."

"So me and Gal. Does this mean we'll make it happen all over again?" She looked up at the Doctor with worry in her eyes. "He knew Gallifrey was his son, Doctor. He just _knew_ it. There wasn't anything I could say to him that would convince him otherwise – even though in his head right now he doesn't know me from Jack." She sniffed a wet sniff. "I challenged him, Doctor. I told him if I meant anything to him at all then he'd remember…"

"It's not your fault, Rose," he assured her gently. "One heart or two, he's still a Timelord." He pressed his lips to her temple. "And he's going to feel you. Feel Gal. Our bonds, they're too strong to be suffocated out by a change in species." He let a couple of breaths ghost across her hair. "There is no fighting against it."

"Then we should just tell him," she suggested softly. "Tell him who we are."

The Doctor shook his head. "We'll find the watch and awaken him. These memories have to come back to him in his own time, not because he's being forced to remember." He turned toward Rose to thread his arms around her waist and to look toward Martha. "Martha, do you know the location of the Fob watch?"

She nodded quickly. "It's on his mantle. I check for it every day when I do clean up."

"Then when we take him back, get the watch, and bring it back to me."

"You don't want me to open it?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No. Not yet. My Tenth self isn't out of danger just yet." He let out a breath. "And the timelines aren't ready for him to awaken." He felt Rose slump in his hold and drop her head against his chest. He looked down to the top of her blonde head. "Not _yet_ , Rose. Not quite yet."

"I need him," she breathed sadly.

"I'm right here," he vowed softly. "Remember. I'm _him_ , okay?"

"I know," she answered with a weak smile. "And just like with your Ninth self, I feel for you just the same as I do him."

He stroked his hands over her hair and took a moment to just take her in; to memorize her face and her incredible amber hazel eyes. His breath hitched as her eyes fluttered closed and her lips parted in a sigh to his touch.

"Stay with me tonight," he blurted in a hoarse whisper.

Her eyes flashed open and looked at him with question. "Pardon me?"

"You and Gallifrey," he amended after a swallow. "Stay here in the TARDIS with me. I know she's already got a room for our little TimeTot." He looked up at the ceiling. "And she'd love to be able to look after him for a while. Please stay. Let me keep you both safe."

"What about me," she queried softly. "Do I have a room as well?"

He dipped his head quickly to capture her mouth with his. It was a soft kiss, a gentle one. It was a kiss full of promise and longing. Rose's eyes fluttered shut and she let herself melt into it, remembering the slow and languid manner of a tender kiss from her Doctor. She sighed as she angled her head just slightly to deepen their connection.

A tiny sound of disgust at the gurney quickly pulled them apart.

"Gross," Gallifrey muttered. "Do you know just how many germs can be spread by doing that?" He slid off the table and clicked his tongue. "You keep that behaviour up and next thing you know I'll have a sister to worry about."

Rose gasped in embarrassment and quickly pulled back from the Doctor. "Gal!"

He raised both of his hands. "Hey. I'm just saying. Not that I'm particularly opposed to having a sister, but one thing at a time, yeah?"

The Doctor shook his head as he scruffed Gallifrey's hair. "Little scamp." He turned to Romana and Martha. "Well. Let's get Mr. Smith back to Farrington. The Matron must be in a bit of a state of worry."

"Let her worry," Martha groused with a curl in her lip. She caught the amused looks from Rose and Romana and shrugged. "I don't like her. I'm sorry."

"You and me both," Romana agreed with a shrug. "She's not a particularly pleasant individual. I'm quite surprised that he is so taken by her. Her pretentiousness far exceeds even the Timelord council."

The Doctor let out a laugh. "That's quite the insult, Romana."

"I have more if you'd like to hear them."

"I would," Martha said with a grin. "Give me a couple of good insults from Gallifrey."

Gallifrey grinned. "Oh. I've got some…"

"She means the planet, Gal," Rose cut in sharply. "And there will be no teaching bad words in Gallifreyan to little TimeTots."

Gallifrey groaned and slumped backward. "No fair."

"Life isn't, get used to it."

"Such a supportive thing for a mother to say to her child," Gallifrey groused as he whipped his arms into a fold across his chest. "Nice job, Mum."

The Doctor chuckled as he wrapped his scarf around his neck and prepared to step back out into the cold. "Gallifrey. Go to your room and find yourself a robe or a jacket to cover up, please. The TARDIS will show you the way."

"Has she got good fashion sense, because I don't want to end up with a technicoloured jacket or something out of the Playboy Mansion."

"How on this Earth do you know that reference," Rose yelped.

Gallifrey's eyes shot wide and he thumbed over his shoulder to the door. "You know. I'm just gonna go get a jacket."

"Gallifrey…"

"Bye!" He ran out of the room fast enough that Rose and Martha were sure that they could see an after image of the young lad.

Rose just shook her head and sighed. "I'm in so much trouble when he gets older, aren't I?"

Martha rubbed at her chin. "Reckon you've already got that."

"His father has so much to answer for."

The Doctor snorted. "His father is _right_ here, remember."

"Okay then," Martha challenged with a grin. "Start answering."

The Doctor answered with only a wink as he thrust his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a white bag of his favourite treat. He popped an orange Jelly Baby into his mouth and chewed twice. "Rose. I must ask you a question," he began wetly over the chewed sweet.

"Gross," she muttered. "But yes?"

"What John muttered before he passed out. Do you know what it means?"

Rose frowned lightly. "Not sure. What did he say?"

The Doctor swallowed the sweet and dug in the bag for another. "Bad Wolf."

As the words left the Doctor's mouth, a long cry of absolute terror exploded from just beyond the doorway.


	23. Brax

A/N: Thank you again, so much, for the amazing response to this fic! I am astounded and thrilled and so inspired to keep going. Thank you and thank you!

got so much to do tonight so had to get really really sneaky to do this today. ... shhhhhhhhhhh

Don't tell anyone.

A twist I hope you enjoy.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The cry of terror from the main corridor of the TARDIS had Rose immediately launch from her position to fly through the doors. She was unapologetic as she roughly shoved by the Doctor, and even less apologetic that she knocked shoulders with Martha as she flew by. All she knew was that her precious little boy was screaming for her, and she was going to simultaneously get to him and kill whatever monster had dared threaten him.

Her son's name was on her lips as she sprinted down the corridor, and when she saw the sight of three men at the end of the hallway. One of the men was in a crouch with his hand clutching at Gallifrey's upper arm as the young boy struggled.

And all at once her entire world seemed to stop.

Heat fired across her cheeks and eyes as she took the moment of stillness to assess each of the men in front of her. The two men dressed in red pants and tunics, with black and white racing stripes down their chests and legs, held powerful firearms in their hands. Firearms, however, that were not held to aim. Both men let their weapons hang loosely at their side as they cautiously watched the man crouched before Gallifrey. This fellow was an obvious well-to-do bloke if his immaculate pinstriped suit, his carefully styled and sleeked hair, and his perfectly manicured moustache were any indicator. A rich boy with body guards at his beck and call. _But_. Protected rich boy or not, this man had a hand on her child, and therefore needed to die…

Rose bellowed out a sound that was as much a howl as it was a growl in warning for the man to take his hands off her son. She vaguely noticed his surprised look as he raised his head to her before she was upon him. Her hands locked on the lapels of his jacket as she hauled him up off the ground. Within a moment she had slammed him up against the wall in a feat of strength that she shouldn't have been capable of.

"Who are you," she demanded inside a dual toned voice as she drew her face close to his and held him tight against the wall.

The man showed surprise at her attack, but the expression quickly fell to a neutral façade. "I think the better question is: _Who_ are _you_?"

There was the click and side of guns being drawn and aimed, but Rose's eyes didn't leave those of the man she held against the wall. "Tell them to stand down," she demanded.

He let his eyes swing lazily between both of hers and breathed out a breath of pure intoxication. "How does one's hearts not seize inside their chest in your presence? You are quite simply the most magnificent creature I have ever had the pleasure to behold."

Rose smiled a brightly lit smile at him. "I'm flattered, however your flattery hasn't distracted me from the fact that the guns are still pointed at me," she advised on her haunted voice. "Order them to stand down, or I will destroy them."

"Mum," Gallifrey begged softly in fear. "Mum, please stop…"

"Mummy's busy right now," she cooed in song. Her look into the face of the man she held before her with an expression of warning. "Don't make me do it in front of my child."

"Andred," he called over her shoulder without shifting his eyes from hers. "You can drop the weapons. As fearful and as…" he inhaled reverently. " _beautiful_ as she is, I don't think she intends on actually doing harm to any of us."

"Want to bet on that," she challenged as she kissed the air between them. "I can see your every atom, and I can divide them with just a breath." She pursed her lips and blew a tight gust of golden breath against his cheek.

"There's no magic that powerful," he answered with a chuckle. "But nice try."

Her eyes flashed a brilliant gold, and Andred let up a surprised yelp from behind her as the gun he held in his hands disintegrated into glittering dust onto his boots. "By Rassilon," he croaked as he looked up with horror toward Rose. "How did you do that?"

Rose's eyes unfocused just lightly as a wave of dizziness passed across the backs of her eyes, but she managed to maintain her stance – if only because of the hold she had on her quarry's jacket. "One down, one to go."

He hummed lightly as he narrowed his gaze to look at her with tighter scrutiny.

"Now," Rose ventured again. "I'll ask you again: Who are you? Answer me, or I will scatter your atoms across all of time and space."

Another hum, this time with a smile that actually tipped his moustache up at the very edges. After a moment that he allowed if only to annoy her further, he spoke.

"Oh, but I can see your timelines," he whispered in response. "Each and every one of them. You're not going to hurt me, or my men. Your soul is far too gentle to kill." He let his eyes flick over her shoulder. "Am I right, _brother_?"

"Threaten her child, Brax, and I assure you that her _gentle soul_ will become very much a raging inferno that will very likely allow her to do just that."

Rose felt the shudder of him before she felt his light touch against her hips. His whisper of her name against her ear drew a sigh from deep within her. Her head tilted backward to rest heavily against his chest. "Doctor."

"It's okay, Rose," the Doctor assured her gently as he curled his arms around her waist and drew her in close. "He's not here to hurt anyone…" He raised his eyes to his brother. " at least I hope not."

Braxiatel looked down at his wrists as he brushed off the sleeves of his suit and pursed his lips in a slightly affronted manner at the suggestion. "As the people of this planet are prone to saying: _I'd break a nail if I were to do something like that._ " His brows arched high in question. "Is that the correct context?"

"Close enough," the Doctor offered flatly. He frowned as he noticed the unusual heaviness of Rose pressed against him, but only shifted his stance to compensate and hold her firm. "Why are you here?"

Braxiatel looked to the ceiling and gave a slight shrug. "Social call."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh no need to be so surprised, Thete," Braxiatel chuckled with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Just because I've never actually done one before, doesn't mean that I can't randomly decide to partake in one now."

The Doctor shot a glance toward Andred, who still looked to be stunned, and perhaps a little bereft, at the disintegration of his weapon. "And Chancellery Guard accompaniment has become the norm for social calls on Gallifrey, now?" He nodded a single bow of his head. "Andred. It is a pleasure to see you again. Do tell. How is my former companion, Leela?"

"She is well and good, Sir."

"I trust that you're treating her well."

Andred smiled widely. "She wouldn't allow any less."

"And neither will I," the Doctor stated firmly. "Do remember that."

"I will, Sir."

Braxiatel folded his arms across his chest, but looked at the manicure of his nails with a distracted air to him. "And speaking of treatment and wellbeing of companions, Thete. I wonder how long _you_ intend on taking before you notice that your own beloved is unconscious against you."

The shock at Briaxiatel's words made the Doctor actually fumble his hold on Rose, and she quickly slipped out of his arms and crumbled into a heap on the floor.

"Oh very full of caring and grace you are," Braxiatel muttered as he swiftly unbuttoned and flipped open his blazer and dropped into a crouch beside her. He took her wrist in between his fingers to take her pulse, but hissed and dropped it before he had the chance to do so. "She's burning up," he stated. "Running at well over the acceptable level of a Human Being."

The Doctor dropped out of his crouch to kneel on the ground at Rose's side and slid his arms underneath her back so that he could lift her against his chest and take her to the infirmary. He winced as he felt her intense heat against his cool skin and pulled back sharply.

"You're right," he muttered with a look to his brother as he prepared himself to try again. "She has to be in the 40's."

"43.2 degrees to be exactly," Gallifrey said worriedly as he dropped to his knees at his mother's side and touched at her hand. The heat of it made him grimace, but he didn't jerk back like the Doctor and Braxiatel. "Every time," he said sadly. "Every single time."

"Every time what," the Doctor queried as he reached out to pull Rose toward him again

He stopped when Gallifrey put his hand on his wrist and shook his head. "I got this." .

"This has happened before?"

Gallifrey nodded as he inhaled a breath and began to shake both of his little hands in front of him. "And every time it's because she's stickin' up for me." He grit his teeth tightly together and increased the shaking of his hands. "Bloody Bad Wolf. I hate her. I absolutely hate her." He closed his eyes and lifted his head. "Always hurting my mum."

"Who is Bad Wolf," Braxiatel queried with a frown of worry.

"Mum," Gallifrey answered as his eyes flashed open and he quickly glanced down at his hand. With a smile he could see the golden ripple of regeneration energies cursing across his skin.

Both the Doctor and Braxiatel gasped in shock, but it was the elder of the boys of Lungbarrow who asked the questions on both of their minds. "How?"

Gallifrey climbed over Rose's chest to straggle her prone form and carefully watched his glowing hands as he slowly moved toward her head. He had the tip of his tongue stuck firmly in the corner of his mouth as he lined up his little fingers with her temples and then closed his eyes tight as he hunched over with a strained hump in his back and shoulders as though he was trying to lift something heavy from the ground.

The Doctor shuffled on the ground toward his brother and had wide eyes of shock as he watched his son and Rose. "What in the name of the Gods?"

"You didn't know, did you," Braxiatel asked with enough breath in his voice to suggest that he was as stunned as the Doctor.

"Didn't know what," he practically squeaked.

"That your son is an eight year old fully regenerating Time Lord." He turned his head to glare a look of warning to the Doctor. " _Please_ tell me that you didn't know, Thete. Tell me that you didn't deliberately put your child in danger by leaving him here when you have the Family nearby looking for a Time Lord meal."

The Doctor's mouth gaped. "I didn't know," he vowed. "By the Gods, Omega, Rassilon and the Other, I did. Not. Know." He looked to Braxiatel. "It's impossible. Regenerations are _not_ a birthright."

"I was conceived in the Vortex," Gallifrey said softly.

The Doctor and Braxiatel looked up to see Gallifrey with his head laid on his mother's chest and his little hands curled into fists under his chin.

"What was that," the Doctor queried.

"The TARDIS was flying through the vortex when I was conceived," he repeated. He then smiled. "I guess Dad was feeling frisky and couldn't wait until he'd piloted the TARDIS to somewhere a little quieter than the Vortex." He kept his eyes on the two Time Lords and blinked a couple of times. "Or… Maybe … you know that Auntie TARDIS is an interfering old girl. Maybe she got an inkling that things were happening and danced across the vortex so he wouldn't be alone anymore." A tear fell from his eye and onto the back of his fist. "But what was the point? He ended up that way, anyway, didn't he?"

"Oh, Gallifrey…"

Gallifrey rolled his head so that his forehead was on his fists. "And now he's a Human and he's never gonna know me, is he?" He didn't look up, but he thrust a hand out to point at the Chancellery Guards. "Because _they're_ here to take us away, aren't they? And after all the fighting mum's done to stop that from happening we're going to be taken somewhere that Dad can never come see us. Ever."

The Doctor shook his head. "No, Son. They're not here for that…"

"We probably _should_ be here for that reason, Thete," Braxiatel murmured worriedly. "Is he a natural-born Gallifreyan?"

"He _should_ be part human," the Doctor said with a frown. "His mother is human, he should be half – more than half human. But his genetic code says that he's fully Gallifreyan."

"Then he's in incredible danger here." Braxiatel let out a breath. "A naturally born and regenerating Time Lord. Thete, he's literally one of a kind. _We_ , as a society don't know the difference between who he is, and who _we_ are."

"I'm just the same as you," Gallifrey injected quietly. "No different."

"We don't know that," Braxiatel offered gently. "And if you being a little different means that you'll become more of a tempting treat for them, then you're in great danger." He looked to the Doctor. "Let me take he and his mother back with me to Gallifrey. I'll have them safe-housed at Arcadia under Andred's watch." He twisted at one end of his moustache and looked back to the child. "I can say with certainty that Leela will also take great pleasure in being given the opportunity to watch over your wife and child."

The Doctor snorted. "A social call, indeed," he groused with a curl in his lip.

"I came here only to meet my nephew and assess whether or not I felt he was worthy of my sponsorship to attend the Academy." He defended himself before he looked to his brother with a frown of concern. "I knew he was womb born to a human mother, and so he would be different to the other cadets at the Academy, but I certainly wasn't expecting _this_." He palmed his face and slowly dragged his hand down the full length of it. "I don't know if I can put an eight year old fully regenerating Gallifreyan in an Academy full of Cadets striving and working hard to receive their regeneration packages. They'll absolutely destroy him."

"You're right, of course. He's too advanced," the Doctor offered quietly. "His Time sense is already well beyond that of a first – even fifty - year Cadet."

"Let's not forget that I am also out of your time," Gallifrey offered as he sat himself up off his mother's chest and stroked at her hair. "By my time I'm not the only human-Gallifreyan hybrid. There are a few of us floating about." He forced a grin. "You damn Time Lords all sneaking about and impregnating human woman like the Greek Gods from Olympus."

Braxiatel smiled a cheeky smile. "Who do you think the Greek Gods of Olympus were?"

Gallifrey actually sniffled a chuckle. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Have you met a woman of Gallifrey?"

Gallifrey seemed to sit up a little straighter, and his smile seemed more genuine. "Yes. Her name is Romanadvoratrelundar. _Romana_ for short."

"Then I do rest my case," Braxiatel purred.

The Doctor looked to where Rose lay on the floor. "Can I please move your mother now, Gal?"

Gallifrey drew himself to a stand and wobbled just slightly as he fought for balance. He steadied himself with a press of a palm into the TARDIS wall. "Just realigned the subcortical nuclei pathways between the basal ganglia, Cerebral Cortex, Thalamus and Brainstem. The vortex energies attacked the Cerebral Cortex this time around, and there was a lot of damage to contend with." He looked up. "Had to get in and repair a couple of her matrices, because that damn Vortex just rips her mind apart." He looked to the Doctor. "How many years do you think I gave up for her?" He held his hand up. "Don't get me wrong. It's more than worth the sacrifice of a few years to save my Mum, but I'm always curious. Only get thirteen lives after all, yeah?"

The Doctor stooped to pick Rose up in his arms. He frowned a pained expression of gladness that she was okay, and pressed his lips tenderly to her hair as he carried her back into the infirmary and set her down gently on a gurney beside the human Doctor. He breathed her name against her lips as he kissed her gently, and then rose to his full height as Braxiatel followed in behind him.

"Oh by the Gods," Braxiatel muttered with a chuckle. "So this is him then?"

The Doctor looked down his shoulder at his human self. "My Tenth incarnation."

"You are one of the few Time Lords who incarnates into younger and younger men with each regeneration," he mused with a shake of his head as he looked over the unconscious man. "I will guess that on your next change you'll end up looking like a gangly twenty-year old – relative Earth time of course."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "If I look in the mirror after my next incarnation and see _that_ image, I'll force a regeneration."

"No you won't," Braxiatel murmured softly as he looked up at the monitor above John. "The Chameleon Arch is failing?"

"Not a total failure," the Doctor answered. "He's having some memory leakage."

"To be expected," Braxiatel muttered with a twist at his moustache. "But leakage of that nature is generally limited to dreams, where the affected can merely pass them of as such." He tapped at the keyboard and watched as new data filled the screen. "And I can definitely confirm that he's reliving an adventure or two right now."

"The bond that exists between Gallifrey and himself…"

"Why would you choose _Gallifrey_ as a name for your son, Thete?" Braxiatel shifted his attention from the computer entirely. "It's a very strange name to choose – especially if you intended on having him enroll in the Academy."

The Doctor shrugged. "I really don't know why that name was chosen." He pressed his hand down onto the mattress beside Rose. "You're right, it is an unusual name for me to want to call my son, but it does rather suit the lad."

"When we awaken the Lord we can always ask him to explain himself, I guess." He noted the lump underneath John's pyjama top, and undid the buttons to investigate. His brow lifted and he passed a look toward the Doctor. "This Lord is announcing himself as one half of a fully bonded pair."

The Doctor nodded. "He is. I can verify that. When we met while he was Time Lord I could feel the bond quite strongly."

He looked at the woman on the gurney. "But she isn't fully bonded – at least not yet."

The Doctor shook his head. "She's not. No."

"Are they not travelling along a linear timeline?" He slumped. "Thete, don't. For every stupid thing you've ever done, none would be as stupid as living a non-linear life with the woman you choose to bond with."

"I'm not stupid," he defended with a shake of his head. "Rose and I – aside from this juncture – have been living a life that was very linearly straight, well … it _was_ a happy together forever life until a dimensional wall separated them and her eight years became my one."

Braxiatel winced. "Oh, one of _those_ kinds of stories." He waved his hand. "Write the book, I'll keep it on my side table."

"How long has he worn this, do you think?"

"Does it _matter_?"

Braxiatel slid his eyes to his brother. "It does if we want to determine why you are bonded at this time to a woman of the same time who is not actually bonded to you." He frowned. "And only on Gallifrey could _that_ statement ever make any sense."

The Doctor shook his head. "It still doesn't."

"You were personally called to assist in this by your Tenth self?"

The Doctor nodded his head. "By _him_ ," he nodded at John Smith. " _After_ this whole debacle is finished."

Braxiatel nodded. "Bonded with wife _and_ child."

"He was very sure to let me know that, yes."

"So between now and then, you and this magnificent woman embark on and complete a full bonding ceremony."

The Doctor nodded.

Braxiatel wagged a brow and switched off the monitor over John Smith. "Then I believe my timing couldn't be more well timed."

"You _are_ a Time Lord," the Doctor muttered with a shrug.

"And I certainly do try not to make ridiculous comments like that." He pressed both hands into the mattress and looked upon his brother with a gentle smirk. "I mean that congratulations are in order."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Yes. Thanks. When we wake him up I'll be sure to let him know that his big brother approves."

"No," Braxiatel corrected him. "I'm congratulating _you_ , not him." He looked to John Smith. "I don't believe that he is the one who completed the Bond."

The Doctor stilled.

Braxiatel smiled a dirty smile. "I mean, a bonding pendant isn't worn just to scare off any Time Ladies who might have interest. The pendant is only ever worn at the completion of the union." He turned to his brother. "Now. He wears the pendant now. Which means his marriage is part of his past."

The Doctor swallowed.

"Which means," Braxiatel continued. "You have to now ask yourself how and who? Just _which_ of your past incarnations has met and loved this woman."

"Me," he breathed. "Just me." He stopped. "And Nine. But Nine never crossed that threshold with her."

Braxiatel looked at the sleeping woman on the bed and found himself appreciating her beauty. "Do you love her, Thete?"

The Doctor nodded. "More than I should." He cleared his throat and nodded rapidly. "I mean. Yes. Yes. I do. Very much so."

"Well then," he advised with a tip of his head toward her. "You know what you need to do, then, don't you?"


	24. To Wed or not to Wed

_A/N: I'm BACK! I'm very humbled and honoured by the amount of messages I've received over the past couple of weeks asking if I'm okay and wondering whether or not I will be continuing this tale._

 _Of course I am! I actually went on vacation to hang out with my gorgeous and amazing sister, who I so rarely get to see anymore because we live on opposite hemispheres …_ _L_ _Needless to say, I couldn't waste a single moment and then – of course – my heart broke as I had to say goodbye and realize that it could likely be years before I see her again. Therefore I held off on writing until I was functioning pretty close to normal again … which is kind of now. Kind of. Maybe…._

 _Anyhoooo….. So yes. I have returned. And I hope to be back to my daily postings again!_

 _Today is a little snippet between brothers. I am about half way through the next little bit, so depending on my ability to get some time at home tonight, I just might get some more up! Whoot whoot…_

 _Right. Now. The Doctor might seem to have a little bit of insecurity in here, and I apologise for that … Just know that I know it's in there. It didn't seem like it when I wrote it, but a read through pointed it out. I don't want tochange it,however, as I've already made too many changes and have had to rewrite pretty much the whole thing already …_

 _I hope you enjoy.!_

 _~~oooOOOooo~~_

 _"_ _Well then. You know what you need to do, don't you?"_

The Doctor let those words swirl around in his head for a few moments before he could find it within himself to respond.

What he _needed_ to do … Yes. Well. _That_ was rather sudden _necessity_ , wasn't it? Very sudden in fact. Just last week he was a single and carefree Time Lord out exploring the universe. Now … ?

Braxiatel gave a sigh and rolled his eyes at his brother's hesitation. "It really shouldn't surprise me that you seem so awkward with the idea, Thete, but I have to admit that I am."

The Doctor shot a look toward his brother that was intended to be unreadable. However, if he were to gauge the unreadability of his countenance based upon the look upon the face of his brother, then he would have to admit that his poker face was anything but.

He let out a sigh and rubbed at his brows with his thumb. "It's not that I don't want to, Brax…"

"You're just not sure if _she_ would be so receptive to the idea," Braxiatel finished for him. "And you're worried about your pride taking a hit if she says no."

The Doctor's head shot up quickly. "Oh," he huffed. "My pride has nothing to do with it."

Braxiatel paused only long enough to let his brows rise high on his forehead and to ensure that his brother had seen his expression before he continued. "No? Then what is the problem?"

"Well…"

"She is clearly a magnificent creature," Braxiatel offered irritably.

"She's _human_."

"Which didn't seem to be an issue to you when you took her to your bed and conceived your son."

"An act that occurs two centuries from now," The Doctor corrected. He stepped into a brisk walk toward the doorway of the medical bay and spoke over his shoulder at his brother. "It was another man who had the opportunity to love her, not me."

Braxiatel rolled his eyes as he followed behind his stalking brother as they entered the corridor and moved toward the recreation room. "Are you so far removed from Gallifrey and the Time Lords that you've forgotten who and what you are?"

The Doctor groaned painfully. "Oh, don't start."

"I've already _started_ ," Braxiatel gruffed. "Regardless of what incarnation of yours fell in love with her, that man is still _you_. It was _you_ who defied Time Lord convention to not only love but fall in love with a woman of another species. It was _you_ who took her into your bed." He looked up the hallway at a youthful cheer of victory hollering out from the recreation room. He couldn't help but smile as his voice softened. "It was _you_ who fathered that child."

"I know," the Doctor admitted with a proud smirk.

"Do you really?"

The Doctor closed his eyes and nodded slowly. After a breath he let his blue eyes flash open and steeled a glare at his brother's face. "Of course I do. Even if I wanted to deny it I can't."

Braxiatel tried not to smirk, and when he realized that his efforts at shielding his smirk were ineffective, he covered it with a spoken: "Go on."

The Doctor ignored his brother's smugness as he launched into a frustrated pacing of the hallway. "I feel it," he groused with a wince. "Every time I take a breath I can feel her; feel my absolute devotion to her. By Rassilon, Brax, being in her presence is absolute torture."

"And why's that, then," he queried with a narrowing in his eyes. "She's right in front of you and within reach."

"Because when all this is over I have to give her back to him," he admitted with an expression of pure agony.

"Give her back to yourself, you mean…"

The Doctor grimaced. "It will kill me to have her like that and then have to surrender her back to my older self to not see her again for how ever many centuries it is until we meet." He exhaled a long breath. "I don't know if I'm strong enough to put myself through that."

"I see," Braxiatel murmured with a rub at his chin.

The Doctor inhaled a deep breath and let his exhale whistle through his teeth. "Whenever I see her I have to exercise the most painful restraint to keep myself from pushing her up against the nearest surface to climb into her: mind, body, and soul."

"An image that I really didn't need, thank you."

"You asked."

"No. I really didn't." Braxiatel set his hands on his hips and shook his head. "And I really don't see how you can use such a flimsy excuse as a means to change your own timeline." He shut his eyes and raised his hand as the Doctor opened his mouth to argue. "I really don't need to hear any more excuses. Do it or don't, it's not my timelines that are in danger of collapsing."

"You _would_ throw that at me, wouldn't you?"

Braxiatel smirked. "I really wouldn't be a responsible Lord of Time if I didn't, would I?"

"I never accused you of being responsible."

"You've been alongside Human's for far too long, Brother," Braxiatel huffed gently. "As always I find myself failing to comprehend your logic."

The Doctor chuckled. "Then stop trying to understand it."

Braxiatel licked at his lip. "Are you finished making excuses, or do I spread the happy word throughout the Council that our renegade Time Lord has finally accepted himself a wife. Oh how the single women of Gallifrey will exhale a collective sigh of relief to have escaped that bullet." He frowned and shook his head. "We won't mention that she's _Human_ , of course." He rubbed at his chin in a thoughtful manner. "I could manipulate a few more records of Heartshaven to have it noted that Rose is an incarnation of one of Romanadvoratrelundar's cousins. That _would_ make it much easier to secure enrolment into the Academy for young Gallifrey – and what a terribly unfortunate name for the young Lord to have to carry, although I do believe that we've already discussed this."

Braxiatel paused in his light ramble for a moment at he registered the uncharacteristic silence of his brother. He let his eyes slide toward him and started at the forlorn look the Doctor had as he analyzed himself somewhat dejectedly.

"Thete?"

"Look at me," the Doctor huffed with frustration. "I currently live inside a body that is old, so old for her. By human standards I have to be in my second half of a century, whereas Rose is barely past the halfway mark of the other side of that century."

"You're over 700 centuries old, Thete," Brax cut in with a sigh. "And you're in your fourth incarnation. I will hazard a guess that you are a few centuries older than that when you meet and then fall in love with that human in.." He paused. "Just which incarnation?"

The Doctor let his eyes lift slowly. "Tenth."

"Oh," Braxiatel said with a laugh. "Then let's go with _older by a couple of millennia_ , then, shall we?"

"Yeah," the Doctor answered with a clearing of his throat. He wasn't willing to let on to his brother that he was burning through his regenerations as quickly as he seemed to be. "Somewhere around there."

"Then I can't see what your issue is, Thete," Braxiatel said with a huff and a roll in his eyes. "You're never going to be any more age appropriate than you are right now." He paused and looked him up and down with scrutiny. "As for your aesthetics. Well. I dare suggest that you might want to choose yourself a younger body to regenerate into if your vanity is the issue here."

For a moment, the Doctor allowed himself a moment to look up at his brother with a slight curl of annoyance in his lip. Before he could consider a retort to his words, however, he suddenly released the tightness of the aggression in his countenance and adopted an expression of curioristy.

"Just why," he began curiously. "Why are you so eager for me to couple with a human, Brax? Isn't it against every belief that you hold for a Time Lord to lower himself to court and wed a lesser species?"

"For me, perhaps," Braxiatel admitted with a shrug. "I would rather remain a celibate Lord than lower myself to the station of a lovelorn Time Lord pining over a lesser species such as the humans."

"Yet you seem so eager for me to do so."

Braxiatel had to chuckle at the suspicious tone in his brother's voice. His chuckle became a series of quiet laughs. "Oh, with you, dear brother, it was inevitable."

"Pardon me?"

Braxiatel waved a dismissive hand in his direction. "The ladies of Gallifrey are simply not to your standard, Thete. They never have been."

"I'm not good enough," he barked back. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Not at all," Braxiatel answered without hesitation. "You are, by far, one of the more _colourful_ and brilliant Lords."

"But…?"

"Oh, there is no _but_ ," he answered. "Thete, there is something about you that commands a higher respect than what you are given, which is why I think the Council and it's many pompous members, treat you with the disdain that they do. They weren't too thrilled with the prophesy of the Matricians when you were loomed."

"Which was _what_ , exactly?"

"Irrelevant to this conversation," Braxiatel shot back. "You asked me why I am encouraging a marriage between yourself and this human girl."

"Yes."

"Because I believe that you're both quite worthy of each other," he answered on a sigh. "A Gallifreyan maiden would never be able to satisfy the various hungers inside you, Thete. Whether those hungers are to learn, to traverse the universe in search of adventure, to impart the wisdoms of your many years of travels through the universe, to love and be loved, lust, or just the hunger for a good meal, a Gallifreyan woman would never be able to sate you." He looked back in the direction of the medical bay. "Your Rose Tyler, however." His eyes shifted back to the Doctor. "She is magnificent to behold, my brother. She has beauty that even the citadel herself cannot challenge. She shares your passion and your hunger."

"She does," he answered in a whisper.

"You love her."

"I do."

Braxiatel folded his arms across his chest and smiled a smug grin. "Then marry her, you woprat. Don't let a woman like that escape." He shifted his chin to indicate the end of the hallway and the exit to the TARDIS. "I can arrange for a ceremony on the banks of Cadonflood this evening if you like."

The Doctor surprised himself that he was seriously considering his brother's advice and imagining just how magnificent Rose would look in traditional Gallifreyan robes during a ceremony on the banks of the Cadonflood River. He found himself suddenly desperate to follow through and return to Gallifrey to become a husband to the mother of his child.

…and speaking of his child…

The Doctor looked up with a sudden movement to look at his brother. "Okay."

"Okay to _what_ ," Braxiatel asked suspiciously. He knew his brother far too well to believe that he had acquiesced so easily.

"I will need the consent of the most influential male figure in Rose's life before any ceremony can take place."

"Not a necessary formality," Braxiatel said with a shrug. "Sure, it looks good to the bride's family for a Lord suitor to ask for the bride's hand from her father, but I think in this instance…"

"I think in this instance I want it done right," the Doctor said sharply. "I have always maintained thatif I choose to marry then I will marry one time and one time only."

Braxiatel snorted. "Well. That's typically one of the side effects of a bonding ceremony, Thete: No other marriages."

"Not one with any physical love, anyway."

"Or any kind of _love_ for that matter," Braxiatel said with a smile. He indicated the doorway with his hand. "I'm going to guess that you believe the _influential male_ in Rose's life is her child, so shall we speak with him?"

The Doctor smirked and held his hand outward. "Age before beauty."

Braxiatel had to laugh. "Oh, my dear Theta Sigma. I think you will find that of the two of us…" He bowed lightly and smirked a facetious grin at his brother. "That I am definitely the better looking one."


	25. Sepulchasm

A/N: I love you guys, you know that? What an amazing response to the last chapter! Thank you and thank you!

I hope hope hope that you like this part of the tale...

I have to duck off to a meeting ... hope to get more up later!

~~oooOOOooo~~

Gallifrey watched the gameboard with wide eyes of expectation as the centre split open to reveal a deep chasm that Andred couldn't save his pieces from collapsing into. He jumped to his feet and bounced on his toes as he victoriously thrust his fists into the air.

"Sepulchasm!"

Andred let out a huff as he dropped his shoulders into the back of the lounge chair he was seated on. He was indignant as he folded his arms across his chest and blew a small lock of hair from his forehead with a single blast of air from his lips. "Beginner's luck."

"Oh that wasn't luck," Gallifrey chirped as he continued to bounce on his toes even as he climbed up onto the on the seat cushions of chair across from Andred. "That was pure and brilliant spectacular genius on my part that won that game." He continued to fist pump the air. "I am the champion!"

Andred immediately leaned forward and narrowed his eyes at the child. "How can you suggest that it was _genius_ that won that round, young Gallifrey, when the game of Sepulchasm is one of chance and luck?"

"Luck?" Gallifrey spluttered incredulously. "Luck? This game isn't about luck, it's about controlling your own will and concentrating and not letting your house go buh-bye in the deep chasm of Hell." He snorted and gave Andred a smug look of a petulant teenager. "And I'd think that a Time Lord like you would have far more will and concentration that a flighty little eight year old like me."

"Young Lord, I will have you know that I completed a century at the Academy," Andred argued. "I've won awards for my telepathic.."

"I beat you."

"Excuse me?"

"I won."

"As I was saying, GallifreyPeterTylerLungbarrowmas…"

"Well, that's a heck of a mouthful," Gallifrey mused with his brows raised high. "How'd you come up with that?"

Andred frowned. "Well that's your name, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but it isn't said in one great mouthful like you just , and the Lungbarrowmas bit. Nope. Not part of my name. Just Gallifrey Peter Tyler if you will." He took care to separate each word.

"But you're the Doctor's son, and therefore a cousin of the Lungbarrow Chapterhouse, so it is most certainly a part of your name."

"Nope," Gallifrey said with a pop on the p. "At least not on my birth certificate anyway. Reckon mum never knew that little tidbit to add it in there." He gasped. "Oh! Do you think that might be part of my dad's actual name? Lungbarrowmas? Oh. That'd be pretty cool if it was. And then I'd only have the rest of the alphabet as my anagram to decipher and work out the rest of his name." He plopped down on the arm rest beside Andred. "I'm pretty good at anagrams, you know. They're fun. They get the synapses firing when you get a good one, or they can frustrate you no end – which they do for mum sometimes. She's pretty good at them, typically, and usually the really long ones, like ten letters long. She will actually struggle a bit on the five or six letter words. Me, I prefer the seven to eight letter range, but I can pull out the super long ones too. Got a fifteen letter word worked out one day." He wriggled happily in his seat. "Because I'm just that brilliant and clever sometimes."

A chuckle filtered in from the doorway and Braxiatel's voice echoed humourously off the walls. "I don't believe it will be necessary to test the paternity of _this_ child."

Gallifrey waved from beside Andred. "Hey Uncle Brax. Did you and Dad get everything sorted out?"

The Doctor strolled in through the door and gave his son a wink. "In the hands of the boys of Ulysses, any problem can be rather swiftly neutralized."

Andred shifted uncomfortably. "You make it sound like you are a pair of assassins."

Braxiatel waggled his brows. "And who said that we aren't?"

Gallifrey tilted his head curiously to one side. "Who's Ulysses, and how are the two of you his boys?"

"Ulysses is your Grandfather, Gal," the Doctor replied in his voice of lecture that faltered immediately upon seeing the game board on the coffee table in front of Andred and Gallifrey. "Sepulchasm! Why I haven partaken in that game in centuries."

"How many centuries exactly, Dad?"

He raised his eyes to the young lad and smirked. "More than I care to admit to." His attention shifted to Andred and his face broke out into a wide grin. "Fancy a game, Andred? I was once quite good at this game."

"Yet you always seemed to lose against me and Innocet, Brother."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "The both of you had the unfair advantage of house assistance if I recall correctly." He slouched and curled a lip. "That damn house hated me."

"But Badger seemed quite fond of you," Braxiatel challenged with a smirk. "And I believe that he aided you where possible." He winked. "And yet you still couldn't win."

Gallifrey bounced in his seat. "And I bet I could give you _both_ a run for your money." He playfully slapped at Andred's shoulder with the back of his hand. "So set it up, _loser_. I'll go double or nothing with ya."

He shot a look toward Gallifrey, who had intensified the victorious bobbing in his seat and sang a champion's song. "I'd rather not, thank you."

The Doctor's eyes widened and he pouted just slightly. "Oh, well that is such a shame, Andred. Is it that you don't really know how to play?" The pout shifted to a smile. "I am more than happy to teach you."

"I don't believe that we have time," Andred answered flatly with a look toward Braxiatel. "We really should be heading back to Gallifrey, don't you think?"

"I think," Braxiatel purred out in a tone that reeked of warning. "That the duration of our stay here on Earth is the decision of your Lord Cardinal, don't you?" He paused and blinked slowly in a dare for Andred to respond. When the young Chancellory Guard didn't take the bait, Braxiatel looked toward his Brother. "I will engage the guards in a spritely game of Sepulchasm while you take a moment to speak with your son. Once you have his answer then we can return your human self to his quarters and make some plans for a trip to Gallifrey."

Gallifrey's eyes widened. "Gallifrey," he said slowly. "As in the _planet_ , yeah?"

"Yes, son," the Doctor answered with a smile. "I think it is high time that you had the opportunity to see the majesty of your namesake."

Gallifrey's thumbnail made its way to his teeth and he gnawed at it. "But I can't, can I? Gallifrey's time locked, yeah, and our time is out of synch and therefore you and me – and I mean _this_ you, not the you that is currently Human, because he's not the fourth you like you are, and I'd guess that you and him – which is you and _you_ – both showing up on Gallifrey at the same time might upset a few people and maybe damage the fabric of reality or something…"

The Doctor frowned. "Gal. Don't you want to go to Gallifrey?"

The victorious bouncing ceased and little Gallifrey hunched unsurely in his seat. "Well…"

"It will be a flight in the TARDIS," the Doctor urged with a smile of encouragement. "It'll be our first adventure together."

Gallifrey lifted his head but maintained his slouch. "But what about the time lock?"

Braxiatel answered this question. "The time Lock exists to prevent a Time Lord from changing his past or seeing his future. You've not been to Gallifrey, young Lord, and so there is no past for you to change. As your future is many centuries from now, you won't be at risk of seeing your future by returning with us."

The Doctor gave a nod to his brother and then looked to his son. "I don't believe the Timelock will apply to you."

Gallifrey's voice came out meek. "But if I already know the future…?"

"Is this future something you have the ability to change?"

Gallifrey shook his head briskly. "No. I don't believe so." He licked at his lip and let the tip of his tongue seat itself on his lip for a moment before he continued. "However much I'd like to."

All three men frowned at that, but it was Andred who spoke the question on their minds. "Is it a future that _can_ be changed?"

Gallifrey shook his head. "Fixed point, so no. And no, I'm not telling you so don't ask."

Braxiatel smiled a tight smile and gave a firm nod. "Good lad. Now. I believe that you and your father have something to discuss and a trip to plan."

The Doctor frowned. "Gallifrey does bring up a good point, Brax." He looked at his brother. "I will dare guess that my older self would've taken Rose to Gallifrey. I doubt I would embark upon a physical and telepathic relationship without taking her to my home first. If she's already been to Gallifrey with my older self, then we can't go there together."

"That's a good point," Braxiatel offered with a frown. "Cadonflood might not be an option then, but I can't see how we can perform a Gallifreyan ceremony off-world and have it recognized…"

"Mum's never been to Gallifrey," Gal offered quietly. "Neither of us have been there."

The Doctor gasped. "Why on Earth not?"

His thumbnail found its way to his mouth again and Gallifrey shrugged as he muttered around the digit. "Ran out of time, I guess. Things to do, planets to save. You know how it is."

The Doctor looked suspicious, as did his brother, but they didn't really press the issue. Instead, the Doctor looked to Braxiatel. "Well. I suppose Cadonflood is a go, then."

Braxiatel nodded toward Gallifrey. "Seek consent from your boy, first, before you have me make any arrangements."

"Indeed," the Doctor answered with a light bow of his head. He looked to his child and opened up a wide and almost manic grin as he held out his hand to him. "My dear boy, come with me. I have an important question to pose to you."

Gallifrey shook his head as he folded his arms tightly across his chest. "Nope. Not moving to Gallifrey."

The expressions of both the Doctor and Braxiatel fell.

"Young Lord…"

"No, Dad," he affirmed as he lifted his head defiantly to practically look down his nose at the Doctor. "M'not going anywhere. My Dad's here and is in danger, and I'm not leaving him." He rolled his eyes to one side. "Okay, I know you're my dad, too, and you are only looking out for my best interests and all that, but I have to look out for him, yeah, because – you know – he's my dad, too." He frowned. "I know that makes it sound like I love him more'n you, but that's not true. I love you, I do. I love him, too. You understand?"

The Doctor's brow flicked upward at his son's imploring look. "Actually, yes. I understand you implicitly."

Gallifrey slid off the armchair and approached his father somewhat warily. "So then you know that I just can't up and leave him right now. Mum didn't raise a coward, Dad. She taught me to stand my ground fight for those you love. I will fight for him. I will. When the danger comes, I'm gonna be there for him."

Andred snorted from the chair behind him. "With due respect, just what do you think you can possibly do? You're just a child."

Gallifrey slowly turned his head to the guard still seated in the chair and levelled a glare at him. "You'd be very surprised about what I am capable of," he hissed threateningly.

Andred gasped as a brief flash of amber darted across the young child's eyes. He rose immediately out of his chair and backed off to the side a few steps. "Lord Cardinal, perhaps it's time that we took our leave."

Braxiatel offered a frown of disappointment in the guard as he let his gaze fall to Gallifrey, who had turned back to the Lungbarrow brothers with a youthful smile of pure innocence. "You fear a _child_ , Andred?"

The Doctor had to chuckle. "What would Leela say to _that_ revelation, then?"

"She will understand once I've had a chance to explain it to her."

"I hardly think she will," the Doctor countered with a shake of his head. "I dare suggest that she will be

Andred glared at them both. "Neemeh and I will stand on guard in the Console room of your capsule, Doctor." He looked to Braxiatel. "With your permission, of course, Lord Cardinal."

"None granted," Braxiatel purred in reply as he undid the buttons of his blazer and let the jacket slide from his shoulders. "Guard is unnecessary, and we have an open Sepulchasm board. Take your seat and find your will and concentration, I am going to relive some of my Academy days and – as the Terrans are so fond of saying – and going to kick your butt."

Andred dropped back into the seat and slouched a defeated hunch. "I will hope that isn't a literal term, Lord Cardinal."

Braxiatel took a seat across from Andred and rolled up his shirtsleeves. His face set into a sly grin as he looked up at his opponent. "We'll just have to see about that, won't we?"

The Doctor shook his head, but smiled, as he dropped his hand to take Gallifrey's hand in his. "Come on, my boy. You and I have something we need to discuss." He felt Gallifrey's hesitation and let out a gentle breath. "I'm not going to ask you to move to Gallifrey."

"Then what, Dad?"

The Doctor had intended for this conversation to be held in the comfort of the library, but only made it as far as the corridor. Gallifrey's reluctance and the hesitating tug against his hand forced the issue and had the Doctor stop them in the hallway.

"My son," he breathed as he set his hands on his shoulders and offered him a loving smile. "My dear boy."

Gallifrey squirmed just a little uncomfortably. "When you start out like that, Dad, I know what's coming isn't going to be good." He gasped and his eyes shot wide. "It's not mum is it? Is she okay? Tell me she's okay!"

The Doctor's grip on the shoulders of his son tightened to prevent him running toward medical. "Your mum's fine, Gal. She's better than fine. She's absolutely marvellous."

"Promise me," he begged in a tiny little voice. "Because she's my whole universe, Dad. If something happened to her, then…"

"…then I'd help you tear apart the universe," the Doctor quickly finished. "There is no power in the whole of the multiverse that could stop either of us from doing just that."

"She's my mum," Gallifrey stated strongly. "I will destroy everything if anything ever happens to her."

"Like every boy would for his mother."

"Damn straight." He pounded one fist against his left heart. "I stand as her protector for all eternity."

The Doctor smiled warmly at that and dropped into a crouch before the young lad. "Then as the protector of our Rose Tyler, I have a rather humble request to make of you."

Gallifrey raised a suspicious brow. "Okay…?"

"Let me begin by reinforcing to you the fact that I love you and your mother very, very much." He smiled and lifted a hand to touch at Gallifrey's cheek. "This incarnation of myself may have only known the two of you for a very short time, but that doesn't mean that I can't promise to you that for now and for all eternity, in this regeneration and in all that follow, I will be completely devoted to the both of you."

Gallifrey offered him a cheeky wink. "And what about the gruffy and pompous trio before you?"

"They will be gruffily and pompously devoted to you both as well."

"Loved by one," Gallifrey began with a smile.

"You're loved by them all," the Doctor finished for him.

Gallifrey leaned forward and circled his arms around the Doctor's neck. He grinned a toothy smile against the side of his head. "I love you, too, Dad."

The Doctor returned his son's embrace with equal force. "Love one…"

"Then I will love you all," Gallifrey finished with a wink as he broke the embrace and took a step back. "You know. Tit for tat and all that." He grinned a cheeky smile as he thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets and dropped his head into his shoulders in a mischievous shrug. "Well. I can't promise that I won't pick a favourite you, of course. You understand that, right. You know, with you all being so different and all, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to love you all heaps and heaps."

The Doctor remained down in his crouch as he looked up to his rambling child. "How would you feel about me marrying your mum, then?"

The cheekiness inside Gallifrey's expression vanished completely and was overtaken by a surprised and desperate countenance. "Repeat that," he asked in a hoarse whisper. "Tell me I'm not just hearing things."

That made the Doctor smile. "You're not hearing things, Gal. I'm seeking your consent to allow me to ask your mother to marry me."

Gallifrey let out the tiniest of squeaks and his little face reddened as he held back the squeal of absolute thrill. "Really?"

"Yes, Gal. Really. I really want to marry your mum."

"And then we can be a real family?"

The Doctor spread a wide and toothy grin across his cheeks. "Oh yes. You and me, and your mum and Auntie TARDIS: A family. A real family."

Well. That was it. Any ounce of control Gallifrey Tyler had on his emotions shattered completely as he let his excited squeal finally explode from deep inside his chest. He launched at his father and practically sobbed as he threw his arms around his neck and clutched at him tightly.

"Yes," he shouted as he held onto his father, yet bounced excitedly on his toes. "Yes yes yes yes. You so totally can. Yes! Absolutely, positively, definitely yes!" He pulled back sharply and stilled his bounce to look his father in the eye. "You did hear me say yes, yeah?"

The Doctor broke out into a grin more manic and wider than Gallifrey would think possible. He wrapped his arms around his son's waist and rose to a stand, pulling the young boy up with him. Gallifrey excitedly kicked his feet in the air as they were hoisted off the ground.

"I can't believe it," Gallifrey panted. "My mum and dad are getting married! That's just the best thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life!" He inhaled a breath. "Well. Maybe meeting you was as brilliant, because I really really was beginning to believe that I never would. And that was exciting, you know, meeting you. Cause I've loved you every minute, every second of my life, and to finally be able to tell you that. Well."

"I love you too, my boy."

"But oh," Gallifrey continued with shortening breaths. "But to know that you love me and mum just as much as we love you. Well that just makes my whole universe so much more awesome. And now you and mum are going to get married, and we can be a real family…"

The Doctor could hear the lad's voice getting strained as he tried to say too much in a single breath. He set his son's feet on the ground and rubbed at his shoulders. "Oh my boy. Take a breath. Breathe."

Gallifrey pointed at his throat. "Respiratory bypass," he croaked. "It'll kick in."

"You know that we still have to ask your mum, Gal," the Doctor warned softly. "We have to make sure it's what she wants, too."

"She will," Gallifrey panted. "She so will. I know it."

"We have to wait and see," he offered quietly. "Perhaps she would prefer…" he winced not wanting to say it out loud.

"Don't rain on my parade, Dad. It's not a good fatherly thing to do."

The Doctor rubbed at Gallifrey's arm. "I'm not trying to rain on your parade, Gal. It's _my_ parade, too." He gave a slightly weak smile. "It's all up to your mum from here."

The voice of the woman in question crooned in sleepily from the doorway to the medical bay. "What's up to me," she said inside a yawn.

Gallifrey's eyes immediately widened and he shot across the floor like a chestnut-haired little bullet to throw himself against his mum.

"Oh mum. You have to say yes. You really really have to agree," he begged. "I don't ever ask for anything, but this time. Oh. This time, mum, this time, I really really want it."

Rose clutched onto her child as tightly as he held on to her, and peered around his scruffy little head toward the Doctor standing behind him. "Uhm. Okay, Gal. I suppose we can discuss what it is you want, and how we can probably procure it for you." She kept her confused and concerned eyes on the Doctor. "Whatever it is, I'm sure your Dad can…"

"Please mum. Please please please pleasepleaseplease." He bounced excitedly in her hold. "You don't have to buy me any more Christmas presents, birthday presents – even though there is one still outstanding."

"I'm sorry about that, Gal. I'll make it up to you."

He pulled back from the hug and looked her in the eyes. His own expression radiated thrill and excitement. "This will totally make it up to me, mum."

The Doctor interrupted with a stroke of his hand on the child's head. "Remember, Gal. This isn't about you. It's about what your mother wants." He raised his eyes to hers and expression full of hope. "And I hope it's what she wants."

Rose shared a look between the Doctor and her son. "What is it that has the both of you so excited, then?"

Gallifrey let out a squeak of excitement and shifted to Roses side with his arm looked across her waist. "Go ahead, Dad. Ask her."

Rose looked suspicious and worried as her gaze shifted from Gallifrey up to the Doctor. "Ask me what?"

The Doctor gave his child a wink and then smiled as he took Rose's hand in his. "I'm going to cut right to the chase here because I think young Gal is going to explode if I prolong this any."

"Uh-huh?"

He lifted her hand to kiss at her knuckles and offered her his most adoring, genuine, and honest look. "Rose Tyler. Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife and bonded partner?"


	26. A Gift from a Time Lord

A/N: Look ma, no cliffhanger!

Let me state right off the bat here that I know .. I know that the Doctor is perhaps a little on the totally sappy side here. I couldn't help it. I am so horrendously bad at writing anything romantic and sappy that I do tend to mess things up. I apologise, I do. I suppose I could try to force myself into watching a romantic comedy to learn what romance is all about, but to be honest - I'd much rather gauge my eyeballs out of my head than do that to myself...

I'm not a romantic, and never will be. I get too uncomfortable with the concept, really.

Anyway. THANKS for the amazing response I'm receiving. You guys really do give a girl some serious writing inspiration... I've missed this!

~~oooOOOooo~~

"Rose Tyler. Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife and bonded partner?"

She frowned lightly at his question, more in stunned confusion than anything else. "What did you just say?"

The Doctor tipped his head to one side and knitted his brows together as he watched her face tighten into what he guessed was an uncomfortable expression. "Perhaps this is bad timing for you, Rose. Never mind." He dropped his gaze to Gallifrey and plastered on an obviously fake smile. "Come, Gal. Let's go see how your uncle is faring in his game against the guards."

Gallifrey shook his head at his father and looked up to his mother. He noted that she still looked toward the Doctor with a stunned expression and so he gave her a little hip bump to coax her attention toward him. "Mum?"

Rose shook herself and then dropped a wide-eyed look down to her child. "Yeah. Yeah, Gal. Sorry, zoned out there for a mo'."

"And once again the morning monster strikes down my beloved mother," he moaned with a roll of his eyes. "Someone get the lady a tea."

She bumped him back with her hip. "Someone get the lady a little boy who isn't a smart-mouth." She looked up to an amused exhale from the Doctor and offered him a smile. "I'm sorry, Doctor. You don't know this yet, but I am only really semi-conscious when I get out of bed in the morning. I half hear things, I can hallucinate, I sometimes think that I'm still dreaming."

"And do you think you're dreaming now," he asked hesitantly.

"I have to be," she admitted softly. "I mean…" She opened up a wide smile and made an exaggerated show of looking around her. "I'm here: on the TARDIS. Safe. I have my beautiful son at my side and the love of my life…" She took his hand in hers and tenderly weaved her fingers through his. "Well, the fourth version of the love of my life standing in front of me asking if I want to be his wife."

The Doctor cleared his throat and gently shifted his fingers to stroke against hers. "And this _fourth version_ of the man you love – is he worthy enough in your eyes to be the man to swear an oath of a permanent union with you?"

Rose looked down at Gallifrey and asked with only a look if he'd give her and the Doctor a moment. Gallifrey immediately pulled away, but not before rolling up onto his toes to kiss his mother's cheek. "I'll be in the rec room with Uncle Brax, Mum."

"Thanks, baby."

He stroked a little hand down her face, gave her a wink, and then spun on his heel and walked back into the rec room. Rose watched as he disappeared and then inhaled a deep breath through her mouth as she passed her gaze toward the Doctor.

"Can we find somewhere more comfortable for this?"

He scratched awkwardly at his hair and then let his hand fall to cup at the back of his neck. "There are plenty of comfortable places on this beautiful ship. However, being that the concept of comfort really does differ between individuals, and that I am able to find my own comfort in just about any room and on any piece of furniture in the TARDIS, I'll leave the decision to you."

Rose nodded. "Does the TARDIS yet have the comfy loveseat in the library; you know, the blue one with the memory foam cushions that are just perfect for snuggling?"

The Doctor swallowed thickly. His voice came out as a croak when he answered. "Yeah. I think the old girl can make that available."

"Library it is, then," Rose decided with a tongue-touched smile as she tugged on his hand. "And if the TARDIS has a cup of tea waiting for me when we get there – white with two if you please – then I'll marry the both of you."

The Doctor couldn't help but break into a grin that was as much relieved as it was thrilled that Rose seemed receptive to the idea of marriage. "So is that a _yes_?"

"That is a: _we need to discuss some things first_ , Doctor," she answered quietly as she stepped in close to lean against his side as they walked. "I don't want to destroy our timelines and invite the reapers again because I decided to go with my heart over my head."

"Something tells me that's a story I want to hear," he ventured with a smirk. "I do so love to hear tales of adventures involving Time's creepy looking cleaning crew."

Rose shuddered against him. "I didn't know you were into horror stories."

That made him chuckle. "There are parts of my life that are nothing but horror stories, Rose."

"And don't I know it," she replied with a sigh as they walked through the door to the library. "You and me – we've walked through many nightmares and horror stories together."

They entered the library and Rose smiled fondly at the blue loveseat in front of a fireplace with a pair of steaming hot cups of tea, a full teapot and a tray of scones. She petted the door frame. "You have no idea just how much I love you, old girl. You spoil me rotten."

The Doctor leaned down to brush his lips against her ear and smiled as she shuddered. "She loves you too."

"I know." Rose gave him a wink and strode away from him to flop into a seat. She quickly petted the cushion next to her in invitation for him to join her. "Come. Sit. Let's talk."

The Doctor cautiously complied with her request, wary about how this conversation would end. Any doubts he may have had were quickly diminished, however, as he immediately found himself under the passionate onslaught of Rose Tyler. She moved upon him with almost inhuman fluidity as she straddled one of his thighs and covered his mouth with hers. The Doctor's arms flailed unsurely, although he made no attempt to push her away. He welcomed her warmth against his mouth and the feeling of her knees holding tightly at his thigh, but was unsure about just how welcome his suddenly burgeoning arousal would be to her.

Rose's hands tugged at his vest and shirt as her head shifted to find the perfect tilt against his, and when her fingertips found the hem of his shirt and brushed at the skin of his belly, the Doctor writhed slightly and inhaled a long gasp.

It was a gasp that Rose quickly took advantage of. She allowed him just enough time to breathe out her name before she was upon him again. Her mouth crushed almost bruisingly against his with a seal so tight that both of them were forced to wetly inhale and then exhale each breath they took through their crushed noses.

The Doctor's arms finally found their place as they snapped down around her waist. Strong forearms crossed each other as they locked tight to pull Rose against his chest in a possessive and desperate manner. He was unable to hold back his growl as her knee pressed against his arousal, nor was he able to control the tightening of his arms around her waist and the aggressive, possessive deepening of their kiss.

As he pulled her tighter against him and lifted her to coax a full straddling of both his thighs, Rose broke from his kiss. She shook her head when his lips pursed in search of hers and pressed her finger against his lips. Her breaths puffed out a panted pattern as she fought to tamp down her own arousal.

"You and him," she panted with a swallow. "You are definitely the same man."

His chest heaved as he calmed his own need. "Is _that_ what that was all about?"

Rose bit at her lip and shook her head. She didn't dismount from her position atop his thighs, instead she allowed herself the moment to enjoy the long missed familiar feeling of him pressed in between her thighs.

The Doctor smiled at both her unwillingness to climb off him and of her slight and experimental rise and fall on his lap. "You've _really_ missed me, haven't you?"

At the waggle of his brows, Rose found her willingness to shift off him. She rolled her eyes and gave him the slightest slap against his shoulder as she slid off his lap and dropped onto the cushion beside him. "Yes. _Definitely_ the same man."

"Of course we are." He tucked a stubborn strand of her hair behind her ear and let his fingertip drag along her cheek. "We might change the outer package and get a few new quirks in our personality, but deep down we are all the same man. Same primal instinct, same wants and needs, same memories…"

"Same caveman possessiveness." She punched at her chest and puffed out a pair of ape sounds.

He had to laugh at that. "Oh. Yes. The territorial possessiveness when taking a lover. That can be attributed to the instinct of the Gallifreyan male moreso than a personality trait of your Doctor." He poked at her sternum. "The Gallifreyan people did not evolve from apes, so I must ask that you don't make that sort of association again." He frowned and contorted his expression into a disgusted grimace. "It's rather insulting to be honest."

"Why," she teased. "Is there something wrong with apes and their descendants?"

"I'm not falling into that trap, so don't try it."

Rose turned sideways in the chair and leaned her head against her fist. She regarded this Doctor, with his clothing and hair disheveled, with a smile of pure adoration. "I love you."

He turned in his seat to adopt a position that mirrored hers almost exactly. "So is that a yes, then?"

Rose stretched a smile across her cheeks. Her gaze was soft and her breaths calm and quiet. She cleared her throat as she shifted her arms forward to take his hand in hers, and lightly toyed with his fingers. "Can I ask you a few questions first?"

He kept his gaze on hers and nodded. "You're looking for answers on regeneration and the, well, the rules of _engagement_."

"Oh please pardon the pun."

The Doctor grinned and wriggled lightly in place in amusement at himself. "Never waste a good pun, Rose Tyler. Always take its hand and run with it."

"You're a proponent of sarcasm too, yeah?"

"Oh, sarcasm is marvellous when used correctly," he stated with a widening smile. "In the right context, with an appropriate tone of voice and carefully chosen words, why it can be the most perfect response in any situation." He winked. "And when you choose phrasing that your intended audience might not immediately understand, then sarcasm can effect greater defeats than any man made weapon."

"I suppose this means that I'll be listening very carefully," she warned. "And just remember I have my own little Time Lord who can decipher and quick wittedly cut you down if you dare try it on me."

"I've no doubt you are a worthy adversary even without Gallifrey at your flank."

"You have no idea."

He shifted the seat of his temple against his fist. "Have you considered my proposal?"

"I've thought about that possibility every day since you wore leather and denim and were all gruffy and sexy." Her fingers stopped toying with his and she clasped his hand tightly. "I want to be your wife, Doctor. I do. I want nothing else in the entire universe than to pledge myself to you for all eternity."

"I'm here and I'm asking, Rose," he implored softly. "What's holding you back?"

"Him," she admitted. "And the fairness of it all." She frowned. "I mean. I know you're the same man and all, but there are just so many things that…" She raked her fingers through her hair. "So many things to wrap my head around."

He let his eyes fall to where their hands were joined. "I understand your confusion, Rose. I do." He looked back up to her. "So share with me your concerns and let me abate your fears."

Rose swallowed as she nodded her head. "First thing first. Will you and me getting married collapse the fabric of time and space?"

His brows shot high at that question. "Well. No."

"I mean. Am I supposed to tie myself to him and him only? I've only just met this you, and you're the younger you, and if I married the younger you then how is it that the older you didn't know me when you met me?"

The Doctor pursed his lips and thought about her question for a moment. "Are you absolutely sure that I didn't know you when you first met me?"

"You understood what I just said?"

He looked slightly affronted by the question. "Of course I did. It was quite the rudimentary query, actually."

She sighed and slouched just slightly. "Of course it is."

"For a Time Lord to hear, anyhow," he amended. "Time travelling and regenerations, well, the Time Lords are the sole proprietors of such, and so we've heard them all. And trust me, Rose. I've heard some real doozies."

"I'm sure you have."

He winked as he saw her smile. "Now to answer your question, which has to be done in parts I'm afraid. There are two immediate options that come to mind. Either I made myself forget this, forget us, and forget everything we ever meant to each other…" He inhaled. "Or I simply pretended not to know you."

She looked pained and clutched tighter at his hand. "Could you really make yourself forget, Doctor?"

"I could," he offered. "Simple to do, really. A little telepathic and mental jiggery pokery to lock it all up tight in my head, and you're all gone from my conscious memory."

Her head dropped forward to shield her face with a curtain of hair. "Oh."

The Doctor quickly leaned forward to slide both his hands underneath her hair to cup her cheeks. With gentle pressure he lifted her face upwards. He dipped his head to offer her his most honest expression. "But that doesn't mean that I would do it," he assured her. "To be honest with you, I don't think I could bring myself to do it." He smiled as his eyes traced her face. "How can I give this up, Rose? You and Gallifrey are the greatest encouragement I have to keep going, to follow this path I've taken and to not give up."

"Just for saying that alone I should marry you."

"The offer's still there, Rose."

"But is it cheating?"

He frowned. "I don't understand the question."

"Am I cheating on him by being with you?"

"He and I are the same man, Rose," he answered somewhat condescendingly. "Infidelity would be you sleeping with my brother or anyone other than any one of the thirteen faces I'll wear throughout my existence. Make love with me, my fifth self, my first self, or my tenth – it's not cheating on me to do it."

"Oh," she breathed on a long breath. "I'll bet there is a clause in there somewhere…"

"If I need you, I need you, Rose. None of my incarnations would ever deny myself the love of my wife if I need you."

Rose chuckled. "You haven't met your ninth self yet…"

He joined her on her chuckle and shuffled slightly closer to her. "Rose. My Tenth self. He's a fully bonded Time Lord."

"Which means?"

"He's married," he clarified. "Not only married, but permanently telepathically bonded to his wife."

She winced, but nodded. "Yes. I know he's married. Or at least he _was_ married." She raised her eyes to his. "He told me he had a wife on Gallifrey, and that he was a father."

"He _what_?"

Rose looked a little chagrined. "Oh. I guess that hasn't happened for you yet. I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't have said anything. Ignore me."

His brows dropped low and knitted together tightly. "I will never ignore you, Rose." He exhaled and ran a hand down his face. "I can't believe it. If I'm bonded in marriage – and believe me when I tell you that I will never take myself a bride without fulfilling the ceremony in its whole – then making love and conceiving a child with you would be impossible."

"But you eat impossible for lunch, so…"

"No, it's absolutely impossible," he declared quickly on a breath more a huff than an exhale. "A telepathic bond makes it physically impossible."

"Guess not, yeah."

He shot her a desperate look. "Did I happen to mention to you what my wife's name is?"

"Oh," she breathed with a shake of her head. "I can't tell you that. I can't influence your future by…"

"Tell me, please." He clutched her hands tightly in his. "I need to know."

"Arkytior," she answered quickly. "Her name was, or is, or will be, Arkytior. It's the same name as your…"

"As Susan," he finished gently. "As my precious Susan. My very first companion on board the TARDIS"

"Your grand daughter," Rose clarified.

"Susan wasn't my grand daughter," he admitted softly. "At least not genetically. I found her wandering the streets of Arcadia. The poor child thought that I was her Grandfather reborn in the loom and became very attached to me. I suppose that I did also, and in much shorter time than I'd ever admit to anyone." He lowered his head in remembrance. "When I met Susan I was a crochety and tetchy old man. She changed me, made me a better man."

"I wish I could thank her."

"Anyway," the Doctor continued quickly. "Her Gallifreyan name was Arkytior, which is High Gallifreyan for…" He took a breath and paused to make sure that she was looking at him. "For Rose."

Rose coughed breathlessly. "What?"

The Doctor smiled as he shifted his eyes from hers and looked downward to go through everything in his mind. "I never let myself forget any of this," he said finally. "I remembered it all."

"I'm not following you," she said softly.

"Oh," the Doctor moaned along a ragged breath. He rose quickly to a stand and covered his chin in his hand as he began to stalk. "I am very clever."

Rose snorted and dropped her temple onto her fist to watch him as he paced. "Yes. You're definitely the same man."

The Doctor didn't appear to hear her. "That's the reason that he sought me out specifically. That's why he was so insistent that I step in and help." He turned to look at Rose. "Because he's already lived this and he knows the outcome."

Rose sat up straight on the chair. "What do you mean? Are you saying that he knows that I fall in love with you?" Her hand flew to cover her mouth. "That I betrayed him?"

"It's not betrayal," he reassured her quickly. "This was inevitability. The closure of a causal loop."

Her face creased in confusion. "What?"

The Doctor ceased his pacing long enough to turn and offer her a victorious and toothy grin that stretched clear across his cheeks. "My dear Rose. Don't you see? This is how it is all supposed to be, how my life was meant to go." He dropped to his knees on the floor in front of her and slid his hands along her jaw to settle them on her cheeks. "He had to put us together here and now in order to make sure that the two of you would find each other again when our timelines came together."

Rose exhaled a breath and tilted her head against his hand. "So you're telling me that this has happened, and will always happen?"

He nodded. "I went back on my own timeline to reach out to me, to give myself a gift that is going to be very important to me." He stroked his thumbs along her cheeks. "Obviously there's something coming; something that is going to test my resolve and probably make me question my entire existence and purpose in this universe."

Rose blinked over wet eyes and nodded. "Yes, Doctor."

"And by knowing that I have you and little Gallifrey at the end of it all, then I know it's not all for naught. I have a reason to push through whatever's coming my way. That I'm going to survive and become stronger – for the two of you."

"I'm always gonna be there for you, Doctor," she vowed passionately as she clutched at his wrists. "Forever. I promised you forever, and I mean it."

"Then marry me, Rose," he implored with a gentle voice. "Let me take you and our son to Gallifrey, to my home. We can wed along the banks of the majestic Cadonflood River under a canopy of silver Cadonwood trees surrounded by a field swirling with the aroma of the schlenk blossoms." He stroked at her hair and looked at the curls of blonde hooked behind her ear. "You could wear one here, a blossom, behind your ear like my mother used to when I was a young child." His eyes shifted back to hers. "Give me the promise that you're always going to be there with me, in my peripheral vision, just waiting until we reunite again – me in my Tenth form…"

"Ninth," she corrected softly. "I met you in your Ninth incarnation."

He smiled. "The younger and more innocent you, yes. But you – this you - you return to me as my wife and the mother of my child when I'm in my Tenth incarnation. You come home to me after all of this is over, and when I need you the most."

"Oh, Doctor."

He rose up on his knees to press a tender kiss to her mouth. "Say yes, my Rose. Give me the honour to pledge myself to you for all of eternity. Be that light in my darkness ahead."

"Something tells me that yes or no, you're still making that pledge."

He gave her a wink. "I believe I already have."

"Then yes," she breathed as she captured his lips in a gentle and chaste kiss. "Yes, Doctor. Let's do it."

His thumbs stroked a slower and more deliberate caress of her cheekbones. "I'll have Brax make the arrangements," he said on a quiet and reverent breath. "And by sundown on Gallifrey we'll be permanently bonded in marriage."

Rose let her fingers toy with his hair as she licked at her lip and gave him a coy, yet seductive look. "How long until sundown on Gallifrey?"

"Nine hours, thirty three minutes and fifty two seconds." He cleared his throat. "Is that too soon?"

Rose bit at her lips and shook her head. Her hands fell to toy with the collar of his shirt. "No. That gives us just enough time."

"Just enough time for what?"

Her lips stretched out into a wide smile. "I imagine we're going to have a completely Gallifreyan ceremony, yeah?" She watched as he nodded and tugged on his shirtfront to pull him toward her. "Well. There's a little Earth custom that I want to make sure that we observe first – one synonymous with a romantic engagement. I hope you don't mind."

"Ahh yes," he purred when he saw the hooded and darkening of her eyes. "Well. If it's your custom, then how can I possibly deny you that?" His voice lowered into a growl as he hauled her up against him. "I'll never deny you anything you'll ever want."

"Come here, then, Doctor."

He looked toward the library doorway as the door swung shut with a resounding slam. "Make sure we have no interruptions," he warned his ship along a dark and dangerous voice. "I don't care who's looking for us, we aren't to be found."

"Oh yes," Rose purred as he tugged her shirt up over her head. "You're definitely the same man."


	27. Waiting

A/N:

Oh I am so sorry this is late, and not only late, but so short!

I was hoping to get something done yesterday, but I was on the receiving end of a very important lesson that you would think a gal like me should probably already have learned when I was somewhere in my late teens or early twenties:  
1) Baileys on the rocks is a pleasant drink and certainly warms the cockles of one's soul when it's cold out and one wants to hang out with one's best bud while the lads are out playing hockey  
2) You can get absolutely wasted on the stuff  
3) Bailey's can absolutely, and quite nastily tap your lactose intolerance on the shoulder and challenge it to an all out drunken brawl  
4) Hangovers and housework and children make a very very bad combination

Needless to say. I was very unintentionally out of the game yesterday.

I only had time today for a little bit ... I promise I'll make it up to you tomorrow!

Thanks!

Oh, and the twist here was at the suggestion of a very delightful and clever reader who I'm very happy to knick ideas from because she does have that clever and inspirational quality to her ... you know who you are... :)

~~oooOOOooo~~

Joan Redfern tightened the wrap of her shawl around her shoulders and let her eyes wander back up to the clock hung on the medical office wall. No that she really had to actually look at it to determine the time that spanned past the last time she checked. The loud tick-ticking as each second passed by gave her more than enough to accurately determine the current time.

 _Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Three hours. It had been three hours since Miss Tyler and Miss Dvoratrelundar ran off into the darkness in search of Mr. Smith and the young boy, Gallifrey. Three hours, and there was no sign of them.

 _Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

It wasn't a boring three hours, Joan had to admit. Over two hours prior there had been an earthquake of sorts that shook the school building. Panic amongst students and faculty had ensued – unnecessarily of course. There was no need to panic. Aside from a light dusting from the aging plaster moulding above their heads, there was no damage. No damage to the building, and certainly no damage to any of the people residing within.

There was definitely a case or two of hypochondria leading to hysteria amongst the ranks, but that was mostly to be expected. A placebo sugar pill administered with stern advice for the patient to rest in their quarters and monitor for symptoms that she knew would never present seemed to satisfy them well enough.

The excitement of that episode only lasted a frantic hour, however. She was no longer granted the distraction of being busy and so as the seconds ticked on Joan Redfern was becoming increasingly agitated.

She knew that she could lay the entire cause of her agitation and frustration on that young boy, Gallifrey. Had that child possessed an ouch of obedience and not defied the rules set down by the headmaster, John Smith would still be safely on site. Instead, the insolent and adventurous young boy had run off alone into the darkness with John Smith close on his tail. When the two of them made it back safely to the school, Joan was going to ensure that young Gallifrey was appropriately dealt with.

John Smith was far too lenient with this child. Had he not refused to discipline, correct and affirm his standing over the child, then perhaps this may not have happened. Young Gallifrey would have stopped when ordered to do so by John, and after enough time to ensure that the boy was safely ensconced in his quarters for the night, so could have continued her evening with John…

…An evening that had the potential to end in a very satisfying way.

Joan shuddered as she considered what could have been. She then exhaled a frustrated breath and stalked toward the hook on the back of the office door that held her coat and gloves.

"Matron Redfern," a harried female voice called frantically as Joan took her coat down from the hook.

Joan looked at the collar of her coat and contemplated putting it back, but opted to hold onto it instead. She leaned slightly around the doorway to see who was seeking her attention. She frowned when she saw it was one of the maids.

"Jenny," Joan asked curiously. "Well what has you in all a bother, then?"

Jenny pressed her hand into the doorway and leaned against it for support as she huffed and puffed to regain a steady breath. "It's Mr. Smith, ma'am," she answered over a dry tongue as she panted heavily. "He's been injured. In the woods. You have to help him."

Joan didn't have to consider the request. The jacket she held in her hands very quickly made its way over her shoulders. She reached across to a hat stand beside the door and grabbed at her felt hat. "And what of Gallifrey?"

Jenny appeared confused by the question. Her panting sucked in and held as she tilted her head lightly and offered the matron a curious look. "Gallifrey?" She queried cautiously. "What of it?"

"Gallifrey is not a _what_ , it's a _who_ ," she snapped. "The Tyler boy. He was with Mr. Smith this evening."

Jenny's look of cautious curiosity shifted to a frown of discomfort. "Yes. Gallifrey, _the boy_ ," she muttered. "The boy's condition is grave. Mr. Smith is refusing to leave his side, even though he is injured and in need of medical attention."

"Of course he is," she said inside a moan of irritation.

"He is of a kind heart, Mr Smith," Jenny murmured in a cottonmouth manner. "Such a kind and gentle soul he has. A kind and very _ancient_ soul."

Joan shivered just slightly as she stepped through the doors and into the cool, crisp night air. "I wouldn't call Mr. Smith _ancient",_ she ventured. "You will be best served however," she continued rather brusquely, "to not speak of Mr. Smith, or any of the faculty or students at Farrington."

"You're right, Ma'am," Jenny replied distractedly. "I apologise."

"Negative or positive," Joan continued as she held onto the top of her hat as she ducked underneath a hanging branch of a tree just to the edge of Farrington's grounds. "It shows familiarity that you do not have the privilege to possess. If I see or hear of you or any of your fellow servants speaking of any faculty staff member or student, I will make the Head of this School aware of the indiscretion. Am I understood?"

Jenny dipped just slightly in agreement. "Yes, ma'am. Again, I apologise. It won't happen again."

"Be sure that it doesn't." Joan inhaled a breath and stretched high in her stand as they entered a clearing. She frowned just slightly as she looked down to Jenny, who was gnawing at her thumbnail and looking cautiously around. "And where is Mr. Smith, then?"

Jenny inhaled a deep breath through her mouth and extended an arm to point toward a line of bushes off into the darkness. Her head slowly shifted so that she could pass a stare along the length of her arm to peer off the point of her finger. "He's just through there, ma'am."

"Thank you," Joan muttered as she hoisted up her skirts to walk over a fallen log.

"Oh, but do be careful," Jenny warned. "You don't know what's waiting for you."

Joan shook her head. "I'm sure it's fine," she replied wearily. "It's far too cold for anything to…."

Her words cut off with a shrill scream that rolled through the trees and fallen branches, loud enough to startle a small flock of birds nesting for the night.

Jenny straightened up out of her forced hunch and turned her head to the side to look at a young and dark haired man that took up position at her side. "We are now complete, Brother of mine."

The handsome young man licked at the side of his lip and rolled his head deeply to crack the line of his neck. "Not quite, Sister of mine," he answered darkly. "Not until we have the Time Lord."

"Has Father had any luck in finding his location yet?"

"His signal is muted," the young man said with obvious tiredness. "Possibly protecting himself with TARDIS shielding…"

"Father believed the Time Lord was hiding himself." He gnawed at her thumbnail. "By scattering his signal. Our ship keeps sensing multiple Time Lord energies – but we know the Doctor is the only one left."

"We can assume, then, that the images we're picking up are false trails. Decoys that the coward Time Lord has set out to try and lure us into his trap."

"I don't think he's going to trap us," Jenny offered with a shrug. "He doesn't _kill_ , and certainly doesn't take prisoners. Father believes he is just laying out the decoys so he can hide in plain sight where we can never find him."

He grinned a dark and dangerous grin. "Oh, he can try and hide all he wants. We _will_ find him."

"Yes, Brother of mine. We will." Jenny lifted her eyes as Joan straightened her dress and skirts as she walked back into the clearing. "And now with Mother wearing the face of Farrington's most trusted, we'll find him even quicker, won't we?"

Joan stood before her two children and smiled as she lifted her hands to fix at her hair. "Too skinny and far too dainty for my liking, but it will have to do."

"Mother, you look beautiful."

"Yes," she said with a sniff. "For a _human_."


	28. A Child's Imagination

A/N: Gawd ... will this arc ever end?! Honestly... I'm getting bored, can ya tell? And if I'm feeling it, then you lot must be, too.

I'm sorry. this all actually moves on from here. It actually does. Stuff begins to happen now ... I just had to push myself through this bit.

I sinceriously hope you enjoy.

~~oooOOOooo~~

"Now. Young Gallifrey. In order to effect the easiest defeat against your opponent during a game of Sepulchasm, it's very important to…"

"But Uncle, Brax. It's _just_ a board game. It's not like I'm conquering countries or planets or anything like that."

"The competitive nature should be instinctive to you, Young Lord. Treat _everything_ like it's the battle of your existence."

"It's _just_ a game…"

"Well if that's the attitude that you're going to have…"

"Are you being petulant?"

"Time Lords are _never_ petulant."

"Well according to my mum I've been petulant heaps of times, so … yeah, they _can_ be."

"That is the Human side of you, Gallifrey, not the Time Lord."

And such was the argument underway when the Doctor finally wandered into the recreation room of his TARDIS. He rolled his eyes with a knowing smile as he crossed the threshold into the room.

"I almost want to ask which of the two of you is the child," he quipped with obvious amusement.

Braxiatel raised his head to retort, but held short of doing so when he took in the image of his brother at the doorway. He was obviously fresh from a shower. The Doctors untamed curls fell down over his jaw, each curl too limp and damp to hold their usual wild bounce. His face was pink and freshly shaven and judging by the light masculine scent of Cadonwood and schlenk blossom, the Doctor had opted to wear after shave cologne.

Braxiatel didn't need to make note of the fact that over top of a perfectly pressed and tailored white shirt the Doctor also wore a crisp new vest that actually matched the brand new trousers he wore to know that his brother's _discussion_ with the human girl must've gone well. Very well.

"Thete," he called with a waggle in his perfectly manicured, yet greying, brow. "You're remarkably well put together this evening."

With his brother's apparent amusement the Doctor frowned a little and looked down at his outfit to assure himself that he had zippered and buttoned everything up correctly. "What's wrong with it?"

"Oh. Nothing," Braxiatel answered with a grin. "Just. I don't think I've seen you wear something that didn't scream _eccentric scientist_ since we were back at the Academy." He looked with a sigh toward Martha. "And yet, even then, with a set uniform, my brother could still find ways to wear it all so … oh how to put it kindly … oh yes. _Creatively_."

Martha gave a shake of her head and crossed the floor toward the Doctor. She offered him a smile as she adjusted the seat of his vest to line it up correctly. There was a glint in her eye as she looked up to him with an affectionate smile. "You scrub up well, Doctor."

"Well," the Doctor said with a widening grin as he took her hands in his and gave them a light squeeze. "If this is to be the most important day of my lives, then I really should look my best, shouldn't I?"

"Yes," she breathed softly. "Yes you should."

"Did she say yes, then, Thete?" Braxiatel's smile was as broad as the Doctors. "Is Arcadia to be notified that their Lord President had chosen himself a wife?"

The Doctor slumped just slightly. "I am not Lord President, Irving. How many times must I have to…" He paused at the sharp call of his name from his child and turned toward the young lad standing on a chair at the game table. "If you wish to interrupt, Gallifrey, then you must excuse yourself. It's only polite."

Gallifrey rolled his eyes. "Yeah yeah. So mum says." His eyes brightened again and he grinned excitedly. "Is what Uncle Brax saying true?"

The Doctor's eyes widened at the question. It was a cheeky widening of the eyes that suggested the Doctor was being playful in his response. "Well. I think you'll have to be more specific on just _what_ part of Braxiatel's words you're referring to, son. Because there can be many answers…"

"The part about you taking yourself a wife," he clarified softly. With eyes wide and full of hope, he stepped one foot onto the game table – much to the annoyance of Andred, who wasted little time in expressing his annoyance with a growl a grunt and a slouch.

Gallifrey ignored Andred and focused on his father. "Did you and mum decide to get married?" He held up a hand before the Doctor could ask for further clarification. "And I mean in _this_ incarnation, right now, like _let's set coordinates to Gallifrey this instant_ kind of thing. I'm not talking about six regenerations from now or anything like that." He groaned and slouched backward. "Because Rassilon only knows mum'd probably come up with some kind of illogical argument about how even though you're the same man, you're really not, so what if it's cheating – because mum never cheats. Did you know she hasn't had a boyfriend since, well. Since as long as I've been around. That isn't to say that there haven't been any efforts by any prowling males to get at her because, trust me, there were _plenty_ that gave it a shot. But mum. She's all about you, yeah?"

"No I didn't know that," the Doctor said in a voice that didn't bother to shield his complete awe at the revelation. "Not one?"

"Nope," Gallifrey popped. "Notta one."

"Oh?" He exhaled a breath, touched by the notion of Rose being celibate for him, and tilted his head. "Really?"

"Not that Nanna didn't try to get her to go on dates, mind," Gallifrey continued with a roll of his eyes as he rocked back on his heels. His little hands were thrust deep into his pockets and he hunched just slightly as he rocked. "But mum wasn't having any part of it." He scratched at his hair. "Then we started running, so there wasn't much time anyway for mum to…" He made kissing sounds, and then offered a disgusted look. "You know. Smooch with boyfriends after that. Time," He sighed. "Always running out of time."

"Well. That's all going to change, Gallifrey," the Doctor advised him with a wide toothey grin. "Time. Oh that means _nothing_ to a Time Lord, does it?" He pointed to Braxiatel. "Why Braxiatel here, the Lord Cardinal of Gallifrey has made a career out of…"

"Let's not bring me into this, Thete," Braxiatel interrupted quickly inside a mutter through his teeth. "There's no need for the laundry of the lads of Lungbarrow to be hung for all to see, now, is there?"

The Doctor paused to look toward his brother and then toward Andred, who actually looked interested in the proceedings for the first time since entering the TARDIS. "Yes," he said after a beat. "Yes, you're probably right."

"I typically am."

" _Typically,_ not _always_."

"Semantics."

The Doctor shook his head a moment and then looked toward Gallifrey. "Now. To answer your earlier question…

Gallifrey bubbled up a laugh. "Oh, did she query the apparent damage to timelines and paradoxes and all that stuff is you _did_ tie the knot?"

The Doctor frowned lightly. "How did you…?"

"Your ninth self and his cranky ' _doom and gloom and don't sneeze back in time lest your snot particles cause a paradox and bring on the Reapers'_ malarkey has some stuff to answer for, you know."

"I'm a bit gruff in my ninth, then?"

"That's what Nanna said." He shrugged. "But it's not like she can talk, yeah. She can get right crabby when she gets her mood on." He grinned. "Mum reckons if she wasn't in love with you, then nanna'n you in leather would've worked out well."

"Me in _what_?"

Gallifrey swept his hands through the air in a dismissive gesture. "Oh enough of that dribble. My word you can just go on and on and on and on, can't you?"

"Me?"

"So tell me, Dad! What did she say? Are we going to be a _real_ family?"

The Doctor gave his son a wink. "Well. The only way to answer _that_ question, my dear boy, is to say: _Let's set coordinates to Gallifrey this instant_."

A squeak became a squeal, and the light rocking onto his toes became an excited bouncing jump. Gallifrey scrambled across the table top, which sent game pieces flying every which way as he launched himself off the tabletop to fly like a comet through the air toward his father.

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!"

The impact of child against his chest wasn't entirely unexpected, but it didn't make the collision any easier to brace for. The Doctor caught the squealing boy with both arms before he was sent scrambling backward by the force of impact. It was only the catch of his back against the wall that stopped the two of them from crumbling into an undistinguished heap on the floor.

The Doctor steadied himself, even under the onslaught of a wriggling and cheering eight year old, and chuckled. "You might want to go to the wardrobe room," he suggested firmly. "I'm sure TARDIS has something appropriate for you to wear."

Gallifrey's eyes lit up as bright as his smile. "Something traditionally Gallifreyan, yeah? Trousers and tunic? Oh please trousers and tunic, because if I find out that Time Lords wear skirts I will cry. Just sayin. Cry like a little girl with pigtails and a frilly skirt..."

"Time Lords don't wear skirts," the Doctor advised with a smirk. "Although if they did wear them I expect frills would be part of the ensemble."

Andred muttered something about taking offence to that, but the Doctor paid him no mind.

"Off you trot, young man," he prdered his son. "If you're going to stand as the Lord to give consent to the marriage, then you need to look the part."

"I am so excited," Gallifrey blurted out with a squeak and a bounce in place. "My parents are getting married!" He looked up to the ceiling. "Auntie TARDIS, let's go find something awesome and Time Lordly to wear, shall we?" He angled his elbow to invite the TARDIS to hook her hand through it, and then paused just long enough to pretend she'd done just that. He patted the air as though petting an invisible hand and then he ambled down the hallway with his elbow crooked talking with the TARDIS as though she hung off his arm and on his every word.

The Doctor held onto his amusement at the scene of his departing child. "What incredible imagination that child has."

"He needs it," Martha offered gently. "For everything that little boy has had to endure in his short life, his creativity and imagination would be essential to get him through it in one piece."

"The ability to take himself to his own fantastic realm where he and his mother are safe…"

"And where his father…" she paused to offer him a smile. "Where his father is with them both. The hero protector that Rose has no doubt told him stories about."

The Doctor looked momentarily worried. "I hope I can live up to expectation."

"I'm sure you already have." Martha said with a smile as she rubbed at his arm. It was a familiar gesture, one that made the Doctor look down at her hand.

"Martha, may I ask you a question?"

She nodded. "Of course."

"Are you and I … I mean my _Tenth_ self … Are we?" He frowned with discomfort as he cleared his throat and swept his finger in the air between them. "I mean have we ever?" He lifted his eyes to hers and pleaded with a look for her to get the question without him having to actually ask it outright. "Well…"

Martha looked a little too stunned by the question to respond immediately. Her mouth hung open lightly and her eyes were flared. "Uh."

"Because," he came in quickly. "I don't want to seem at all insensitive to your own feelings toward my future self. And if I had crossed that line, then…"

"Bonded," Martha croaked quietly.

"Bonded!" He cheered. "Why yes. Of course. Being bonded to Rose means that I am incapable of such indiscretions." He let out a breath. "And with respect and admiration to you, of course, let me just take a moment to express my relief at that."

Her slight wistfulness turned quickly to offence. "Well. I can see that blunt rudeness carries on from one incarnation to the next."

The Doctor heard, quite clearly, the single laugh that burst from his brother's throat, but chose to ignore it in favour of looking as absolutely shameful and apologetic as was possible. "That's not what I meant, Martha. You are a lovely girl, and I've no doubt that in any other circumstance you would absolutely spark my interest…"

Braxiatel laughed again and bellowed something along the lines of just giving up.

Martha's expression went from offended to just plain dumbfounded. "Wow, Doctor."

His face creased in embarrassment. "I'm not entirely good at this, am I?"

"Oh," she said with a laugh. "You're horrendous at it. You're much better at being an insensitive and oblivious Time Lord than you are one who actually notices things."

He snapped her into a hug and dropped his chin onto the top of her head. "It's my defence mechanism, Martha. For when I feel and notice too much."

"And when you don't want to hurt my feelings," she sighed. "I understand."

"I'm pretty sure that you mean the world to me, Martha." His arms tightened around her. "If I didn't trust you implicitly, then I'd never have put myself in this position and you in danger."

Martha lifted her arms to return his hug and turned her head to press her ear against his chest. She closed her eyes to listen to the dual thumping of his hearts. "I love that daft skinny alien to bits, you know that?"

"And you're forever in my hearts, too, Martha. Always remember that."

Braxiatel huffed from the table as he swept game pieces from the board with a cupped hand. "Are we just about finished with the hand holding and sentiment? We do have a trip to make and sundown is fast approaching."

"We are _hugging_ ," the Doctor corrected sharply. "And we will be finished when we are finished."

"So very unbecoming of a Time Lord," Braxiatel moaned. "Tell me, brother, do you have a habit of _hugging_ all of the universes sentient creatures?"

"All except the _sentient creatures_ of Gallifrey," he mumbled in response. He looked down at Martha and gave her a wink. "Cold and unfeeling species those Gallifreyans, let me tell you."

Martha rolled her eyes as she took a step back. She laid her hand on his chest and smiled warmly up at him. "My heartfelt congratulations to you for finally finding your Rose and reuniting with your family. I know how much you've needed them back in your life."

He looked somewhat surprised by that. "I've spoken of them?"

Martha nodded quickly, her eyes wide as saucers. "Oh yes. Quite a bit, actually." She smiled a sheepish grin. "Figured I was the rebound there for a while."

The Doctor's surprise shifted to warmth. "Then that proves that I trust you and consider you a close friend. I never speak of old companions – it tends to hurt."

She nodded. "Moving on. You have a trip to make, so I'll just get my _Human Time Lord_ and get out of your way."

"You're not coming to Gallifrey with us?"

Martha was shocked by the earnestness in his voice as he asked that question. She had figured that it was something _private_ that he wouldn't be willing to share. "You _want_ me there?"

He laid a hand on her shoulder. "Of course I do, Martha." He watched as his current companion breezed in through the door, with a bouquet of Gallifreyan blooms in her hand. "Romana, maybe not, but you."

"I heard that," Romana sang.

He grinned at Martha. "You are a sweet girl who I think hungers to see everything this universe has to offer. A Gallifreyan bonding and marriage ceremony isn't to be missed."

"But I have to," Martha answered softly. "Miss it, I mean." She thumbed to the doorway. "Your Tenth self tasked me with protecting him while he was a bumbling and useless human being. I can't just up and leave him all alone to go traipsing though time and space…"

"Of course you can," he cheered. "And I am hereby giving you your permission to take your eyes off me for a few moments to watch me marry the love of my lives. I will understand your absence implicitly." He leaned down with a wink. "In fact, I won't argue it or make you feel poorly for leaving my side a moment. Not when I insist that you do so."

"I know you insist, Doctor," she began. "But I have to pass. I don't want to leave him here alone and at risk."

"We'll be back no more than five minutes after we leave if you're concerned."

Martha had to chuckle. "With _your_ piloting skills I'm not taking that chance."

The Doctor frowned. "I'm beginning to believe that the old girl and I just might have a few navigational issues as we get older."

" _As_ you get older," Romana queried incredulously. "As?"

"I am a perfectly fine TARDIS pilot," he defended.

"Compared to a first year academy cadet, perhaps. But even that assessment is questionable." She let her eyes shift to Martha. "I've landed the TARDIS inside John Smith's quarters at the school and have him ready to be transported to his bed. His vitals have stabilized and he doesn't seem to be experiencing any more neurological implosions."

"Did you give him a Panadol?"

Romana chuckled. "Something to that effect anyhow." She picked lightly at the flowers in her hand as she tried to make the arrangement look as perfect as possible. "Your concern for the Doctor's wellbeing in our absence is commendable, but truly unnecessary. Once we leave planet Earth, any Time Lord traces will disappear with us. He will be safer with our departure than with any of us being here."

"That may be true, but I'd feel better about it if I stayed," Martha replied with a slack smile. "I made him a promise, and I intend to keep it."

"Loop hole over here," the Doctor ventured with a wave of his hand. "I'm giving you your _out_."

"Still no," she said with a smile. "But I'm honestly flattered that you want me there." She turned to Romana. "Want to help me drag skinny boy back to his bed?"

"Provided I am not expected to have to disrobe him again. Once was quite enough, thank you."

"Oh, am I going to give him hell when he is back to being all _superior Time Lord_ again."

Romana smirked as she followed Martha out of the room. "Superior, yeah? Well. It is habit for the human males to denigrate each other by questioning the size of their genitalia, yes?"

The Doctor wore his grin as the sounds of Romana and Martha joking together slowly tapered off as they moved down the hall. He felt the touch of his brother's hand on his shoulder and lightly tipped his head to regard him with cool eyes. "Are we ready for this, Brax?"

"Are you?"

The Doctor nodded. "More than I ever will be." He grinned. "Off to Gallifrey, then."


	29. Waking Up

A/N: My mind's in a funky place today ... discharging from a rather insanely busy week that saw me do more than a few hours overtime (I did a 20-hour day yesterday...)

So if this is whoooooo-whooooo out there... sorry... it's where my mind is at!

~~oooOOOooo~~

For the first time since he could remember, John Smith roused slowly from his slumber. There was no sudden jolt in his limbs or a hard gasp for breath as his hips and back protested the sudden movement of waking suddenly and rocking himself up to a seat. No. This morning, he could feel slumber's gentle release as the morning sun gently lapped at the apples of his cheeks and tickled at his eyelids. He exhaled a long breath through his lips as he enjoyed a relaxing moment of warm sunlight dancing along his cheeks. John's inhale brought to him the scent of wild roses and lavender combined with just the merest hint of almond oil, and his mouth dropped open just slightly to try and taste that glorious aroma from the air.

Words. Words that were so tender and very full of devotion were spoken in a whisper against his ear. It was a whisper so gentle that John could barely hear them. The careful silence of the words and the attempt to shield them entirely from his subconscious didn't mean that they weren't heard by his very soul. He took those words and seared them across his hearts, using them to cauterize the wounds that living a millennia of heartbreak and wars had opened inside his very ancient soul.

…Hearts?

…Living a _millennia_?

John Smith's eyes flashed open, relaxed, and then closed once more. Dreaming. Damn if he was dreaming of that cursed travelling alien again. That alien who not only had all of time and space at his command, but also the hand and the heart of a woman whose love and devotion for him had no limits. Oh, how he wanted to be that man…

"… _So come home soon, Doctor. I love you. We both do_ …"

John Smith felt those words more than he heard them, and the light pepper of breath against his ear made him shudder and let out a shaking breath. Along that breath ghosted a name spoken in a tongue John Smith didn't understand.

He felt a light pressure of a hand pressing down on his chest and the puff of a chuckle against his ear.

" _Now that I know who your_ Arkytior _is, I want to hear you say that name over and over again_ …"

And repeat it he did, inside an exhale, twice more.

The hand that was seated on his chest slid up his chest, curved around his neck and then settled into a tender curl along his jaw. Warm, soft lips pressed against his temple and there was the slightest hint of suction that released with a gentle pop and puff of breath from an exhale through her nose.

"…I'll come by and check on you later…"

He rolled his head to the side and let his eyes open slowly. "Stay." His voice was croaked and sleep addled, but the sentiment was crystal clear.

Rose grimaced just slightly at his plea before she allowed herself to really look at the eyes of the man who looked at her so intently.

"Please stay," he asked again.

Hi voice, his plea, and the ancient depth of the eyes looking back at her drew Rose Tyler's breath in tight. She held that breath a moment and exhaled as she lightly drew her hand away from his jaw. Her fingers brushed a feather-like trail from ear to chin.

"Only if you do," she whispered softly as she traced the pads of her fingers along his full bottom lip. "And we both know you can't."

He grabbed at her hand and held it to his cheek as he inhaled a shaking breath. A tear rolled down past his temple as he slowly shook his head.

"I didn't think so," she said in a defeated voice as her gaze fell to the blanket pooled on the ground beside the bed.

"Soon," he croaked. "Soon."

Rose inhaled a wet sniff and forced a smile as she wiped at her eye and nodded. "Well then. You'd better go all human-y on me again, because this battle of Time Lord versus Human really does your head in, doesn't it, Doctor?"

He lifted a hand to curl his fingers behind her head, and then gently coaxed her to lean forward to meet her mouth against his. He allowed the slightest brush of his lip against hers, and then used the hold of his thumb on her cheek to hold her a mere millimetre from him.

"It's our wedding day," he whispered. "My most cherished memory in over 900 years of life."

With those words, and even with the knowledge that he was still holding her just short of kissing him – likely so he could keep talking and maybe fall into a babble that would make her soon and probably cry – Rose descended upon him. Her mouth collided hard with his and she clutched tightly at either side of his face to hold him firm and prevent him pulling away.

She needn't have concerned herself with that, however, as the Doctor's arms immediately snapped around her chest and his hands locked together at her back. His head shifted in a dramatic tilt as he sought a deeper connection. He tugged her down so that her chest laid atop his and let out a possessive growl rumble from deep inside the back of his throat.

At that familiar sound, Rose tore her mouth from his. Her chest was still pressed against his as she panted huffs of breath against his mouth. "I gotto go."

"So do I."

"I'm going to Gallifrey."

"Bring me back a flower."

She unhooked his hands from behind her back. "How about I bring you back a Rose?"

"Arkytior," he corrected softly with a smile and slowly drooping eyes. " _My_ Arkytior."

"Doctor," she whispered softly as she picked herself up and slid off the side of his bed. " _My_ Doctor."

He drifted off again, with ancient alien words tipping off his tongue and into his pillow as his hand made one last sweep in the air in search of her. He settled only when she brushed her fingers against his.

He woke again to the sounds of birds chirping through the window, the click clack of hooves on stone and the whining bleating honk of a T-Model's horn. His morning symphony. All he needed to complete it was to hear the click of his bedroom door, the tinkle of Tea cups and pot, and the cautious greeting of his maid.

At the sound of the turning of the door handle, John Smith smiled and drew himself to a seat on the bed. He had enough time to draw his robe from the post at the foot of his bed and had it slipped on his shoulders when Martha entered the room with his breakfast tray in his hand.

"Martha," he greeted with more cheer in his tone than was typical. "Top of the morning!"

Martha lifted a brow and paused for a moment just beyond the door. She watched as he slid off his bed completely and tied the belt around his waist. "Are you feeling okay, Sir?"

John pointed to the table as a suggestion or her to set down the tray. "I had a wonderful night sleep," he admitted with a stretch. "For the first time in – oh – such a long time, I think I slept unhindered throughout the night."

Martha set the tray on the table and bit at her lip as she arranged the breakfast for him. "I'm happy to hear that, Sir." She turned and cradled her hands in front of her. "I'll leave you to your breakfast, but will come back shortly to collect your tray." She caught herself and tried to hide the widening of her eyes. "That is, Sir, if there's nothing else you require."

His bright exuberance faltered just slightly as he looked down at himself with a brow dropped clear over one eye. "Now that you mention it," he muttered more to himself than to her. "How?"

"Miss Tyler and Miss Dvoratrelundar brought you in from the woods last evening," she stated quickly assuming he meant to ask about that.

John raised his head slightly and relaxrd his confused features. "Miss Tyler," he whispered almost reverently. "She was _here_?"

"Yes sir," Martha answered without hesitation. "You were found unconscious in the woods, and Miss Tyler's one of our nurses. Of course she would tend to you."

"Why not the Matron?"

"She wasn't available at the time," Martha answered with a slight tilt in her head as she stepped backward toward the fireplace. "And Miss Tyler was on shift at the time."

"And what of young Gallifrey," John asked on a low and worried voice. "Was he found safe?"

"With a lot more energy and life in him that before he went wandering, let me tell you," Martha said with a giggle. "That boy is an absolute marvel, he really is."

"I'm very glad that you think so," John puffed with pride.

Martha frowned rather uncomfortably. "And why is that, Sir? I mean, yes, I consider Rose to be a lovely person who I know I will be life-long friends with…"

"Yes," he cut in on a curious tone. "She is rather _lovely_ that Rose Tyler, isn't she?"

Martha considered him a moment, and the rather darkened way he spoke his last question. In silence she watched him take a seat at the table and lean forward to drop three lumps of sugar into the small teacup.

"What do you think of her, Martha," he asked without looking in her direction as he added milk to her cup.

"As I said. I find her to be quite a lovely woman." She broke out into a grin. "I must admit, that when my best friend spoke her name over and over again, regaling me with…"

"What was that?" John Smith turned abruptly in his seat. "Are you suggesting that you already knew of Miss Tyler before her arrival here at Farrington?"

Martha's eyes shot wide. "Oh. Well…"

He held himself down from leaping out of the old chair by clutching at the edges of the cushion. "What can you tell me about her life before Farrington? What do you know about her?"

"With all respect due to you, Sir. I don't really see how it's any of your concern."

At that he pushed himself to a stand and approached her. And although a skinny rake, he had a height advantage over her. "Martha, tell me who she is … who she _was_ before she came to Farrington."

Martha took a slight step backward. "I don't know what you want me to say, Sir. All I know of Rose Tyler – and all I've ever known about her – is that she's the love of my best friend's life, and she loves him just as much as he does her."

"And who is your _best friend_?," he chipped accusingly.

Martha narrowed her eyes at him, but held back from the snarky comment her mind had already prepared for her. "My _best friend_ ," she repeated in the same tone he'd used. "Is the Doctor."

He looked slightly taken aback by that revelation. "The Doctor?" He looked quite perplexed. "That eccentric looking fellow with the long scarf?"

"Yes," Martha answered with a grin that was impossible to hide. "That daft man is, and always will be, my best friend. There's nothing I wouldn't do for him."

"I see," John answered with pouted lips. "So perhaps you can clarify his relationship with Miss and Master Tyler for me."

"I hardly think that's any of your concern, Mr. Smith," Martha shot back with a frown. "That would indicate a familiarity that is most inappropriate, don't you think. Not only that, it's gossip, and I won't fall victim to school house gossip."

"It is every bit my concern," he snapped as he fisted the tabletop hard enough for the teacup and pot to jump slightly. "I look into that child's eyes and see my own. He is a walking reflection of me and therefore…"

"He's not your son," Martha interrupted quickly before he could continue.

"You look at that boy, then back at me, Martha," he pressed. "Take a really good look, and you tell me he's not mine." He pointed to the doorway. "I've already heard the gossips here and in town making their comparisons and comments."

" _Gallifrey_ ," Martha warned along a darkened voice. "Is the Doctor's son. Not yours. Definitely not yours."

"How can you be so sure?"

Martha lifted her brows and sucked on her teeth as she folded her arms across her chest and eyed him up and down. "Because you're not _him,_ " she answered coldly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Martha dropped her head into her hand and rubbed lightly at her brow. She exhaled a cleansing, and calming breath. "Mr. Smith." She looked up and her voice softened. "No other man in this country, on this planet, or in the universe as a whole, could have fathered a child as unique as that young boy." She strode closer to him. "And by that statement I mean that Rose's child is unique. So unique, in fact that it becomes undeniable who fathered him."

"Or it's because of conditioning that he's developed those unique traits," John countered. "Children can be as easily trained and conditioned as any animal…"

"Well _that's_ a _lovely_ descriptive for a child, isn't it?"

"Comparatively speaking," he shot back. "Two infants," he challenged as he lifted his arms and displayed his palms as though two individual children. "Both born of the same stock. Same mother, same father. Same environment." He separated his arms and held them up and either side of himself. "If you separate these infants and put them in very different environments, with a different upbringing, different disciplinary actions and behaviour modification techniques, will those two identical infants grow to be identical children and adults," he took a breath. "Or will they both be different, with different views, different values, different … eccentricities?"

Martha blinked slowly. "Raise two children in the same house and same environment with the same parenting, and they'll be as different as you can imagine."

"But are they really?"

"Gallifrey is not your son," Martha clarified slowly. "He is the progeny of Rose Tyler and the Doctor, not of Rose Tyler and John Smith."

"Well," John began in a manner far too much like the Tenth Doctor. "That's his name, isn't it?"

"Who? The Doctor?"

He thrust his hands into his robe pockets and walked toward the fireplace. "That's how he introduced himself to us, wasn't it?"

Martha rolled her eyes and nodded. "Well, yes. I suppose he did."

"You may think that I'm becoming a crazy man, Martha, and perhaps I might be," he muttered as he leaned his forearm on the fireplace and studied his reflection in the mirror above the mantle. "And who knows, perhaps I'm becoming insane, what with this fantastic dreams I keep having, and the day dreaming I seem to be partaking in recently."

Martha _didn't_ want to know, so she definitely wasn't about to ask. She remained perfectly silent in hope that he would stop and dismiss her for the morning.

He didn't.

"Am I stressed out about something, Martha? I don't know." He ran his thumb over an ancient and tarnished brass fob watch and exhaled. "I feel them – Rose and Gallifrey – all the time." His eyes raised again to his reflection. "I know her, Martha. I feel like I always have."

"She makes you feel that way, Sir," Martha replied softly. "She has an incredibly beautiful spirit and soul that is so welcoming."

"I think I love her."

Martha initially peeped, but quickly hid it behind an aartful clearing of her throat. "What was that, Sir?"

He turned from the mantle and pulled the fob watch with him. He hung it from the chain hooked around his finger and caressed the chain with his thumb in an absent and self-calming motion. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I can feel them inside my soul. Both of them. It's like we're three parts of an incredible and unbreakable bond created far away from here. But we've been apart, so far apart for so long. The bond is lost…"

"That's whimsical, Sir, even for you."

John looked down at the chain of his watch and smiled a toothy smile. "Which proves my hypothesis, Martha."

"I didn't realize that you had one, Sir."

He raised his eyes. "That I'm quite likely in love with Rose Tyler – and quite possibly already was when I was enjoying my wild youth."

"You suggest that becoming a whimsical and nonsensical fool is the evidence that proves your hypothesis?" She caught an indignant look and rolled her eyes. "Okay, yes. You're right. Very symptomatic of a man in love, I suppose."

He let out a breath. "Oh how I must have hurt her, Martha. For a woman so young and so incredibly beautiful to be left alone – in these times – to raise a child with no husband."

"Rose is a strong woman, and she isn't alone." She smiled. "She will _never_ be alone – not when she has the love of the Doctor."

John immediately frowned. "A rival suitor."

Martha winced. "Mr. Smith. Please. You were knocked unconscious last evening, and you've probably suffered a concussion and simply are not thinking properly."

"I've never experienced clarity like this, Martha," he answered as he set the watch on the table and let the chain pool quickly over its top and along the sides. "The fog has lifted and everything is becoming clear."

"But what about Matron Redfern," she queried desperately, wincing while she did so. "Had you not taken quite a shine to her over these past few weeks?"

He rubbed at his chin and frowned. "Yes. I had. Did. Do. Do. I still do, to some degree," he admitted with a crease in his brow and a tightening in his jaw. "Well. This is a conundrum, isn't it?"

"Hardly," Martha muttered under her breath. "I know what I'd do.."

"What was that?"

"Oh. Nothing," she sang innocently. "Nothing, Sir."

He let out a breath. "What do I do, Martha?"

"Love the one you're with," she answered gruffly and with a roll in her eyes. "Because you, as you are, are never going to have the one you love."

"Well that's a bit of a cruel thing to say, isn't it?" He frowned as he looked her up and down and tried to formulate a response, any response, that might be just as cutting. Alas, he couldn't think up a single thing at that moment.

"It's honest, Sir," she replied softly. "Because as of about an hour ago, Rose and the Doctor were married."

He blinked rapidly as his mind tried to process what he'd just heard. "What did you just say?"

"The Doctor and Rose," she repeated carefully as she strode toward him. "They exchanged their vows on the banks of the Cadonflood River, shadowed by Mount Lung and the Cadonwood forests with The Doctor's brother officiating the ceremony. Romana, Andred and Leela stood as witness, and little Gallifrey was the one to give consent to the union." She let out a wistful breath as she recalled the beautiful images and video provided by the TARDIS of the ceremony. "I wish I could've been there – it all seemed so magical and beautiful."

John Smith was quiet for a long moment. Save for the deepening, lengthening whoosh of breath inhaling and exhaling through his nose he made no sound.

Martha knew the signs well. Be he the Doctor or be he John Smith, silence was never a precursor to a happy happy joy joy moment. It typically heralded a temper tantrum of epic proportions that could quite easily destroy galaxies if he had access to a TARDIS and her often suppressed weapons systems.

"John," she breathed carefully. "Sir? Are you okay?"

His eyes snapped up fast to hers and locked tight with an icy, yet furious stare. "No, Martha. No I'm not."


	30. Thirteen Doctors

A/N: Fluff alert ... just a little romantic thing to get through before the ceremony itself... I figured it was important that all the lads got their hands in this affair...

And I'm not apologising at all for it. My fluff. I wanted it ... :)

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose winced just lightly under the not-to-gentle tugging of her hair as Romana twisted and looped it up and around a golden halo that sat across her forehead.

"Is this all _really_ necessary," she grit through her teeth as she peered out of one eye at her reflection in the mirror of the dresser in her dressing room on the TARDIS. "It's all kind of ostentatious, don't you think – tiaras and robes and things." She sighed. "It's not really _me_."

"You're about to marry a Time Lord," Romana countered as she braided a waterfall design around Rose's ear. "Ostentatious is kind of our domain."

Rose had to chuckle lightly. "Even if my Time Lord is the Doctor?"

"Good point," Romana agreed with a laugh. "And although our beloved renegade Time Lord pretends he isn't all pomp and circumstance, when it comes to his wedding, he's as pompous as the rest of them."

Rose's eyebrows shot high. "Really?"

"Really," she assured gently. She nodded toward the crimson and gold gown hung on a mannequin to the side of them. "That was a far less elegant design before he made his change requests. He wanted his bride to look as magnificent as possible. You are, after all, competing against the backdrop of the mountains he grew up gazing upon." She winced. "That isn't to say he doesn't already find you more beautiful than the mountains, of course."

Rose frowned. "Oh. Don't be daft, this dress was already in the TARDIS wardrobe."

"It took six months to make, Rose."

Rose shook her head, grimacing when Romana lightly smacked the side of her head and told her to sit still. "We only decided to get married a few hours ago, Romana."

"Time Travellers."

"Ahh. Yes. Of course," she breathed. "Crafted on Gallifrey, then?"

"Yes."

Rose frowned. "But you can't travel back in time into Gallifrey, yeah?"

"A hypercube sent back to an earlier incarnation solves that issue," Romana advised with a wink. "His third self was most excited and sent along his own addition to your ensemble." She held her tongue at the edge of her mouth as she tugged the last twist of Roe's hair around the halo. "Which would be this dastardly thing."

"This is from him?"

Romana pulled back to admire her work. Her expression fell into one of awe. "It is, and oh how beautiful it makes you look. Gallifreyan maiden with just a twist of Human in its simple elegance." She stood beside Rose and for a moment allowed Rose to marvel at her own beauty. "You're going to take his breath away."

Rose raised a trembling hand to the intricately etched golden band that sat across her forehead. She sighed as her fingers traced over the circles and swirls that ran across its length. "This is Gallifreyan, yeah? I see it on the TARDIS monitors."

"Yes," Romana breathed softly. "Each circle holds a one-word message given by each one of the Doctor's incarnations, from one through to Thirteen."

Rose gasped. "From _each_ of them?" She turned abruptly toward Romana with tears in her eyes. "They _all_ …?"

"This is the biggest day of his life," Romana answered gently. "They all want a part in it." She ran her thumb along the line on text. "And as they can't be there _personally_. Would you like me to read them to you?"

"Maybe _he_ could, when the ceremony is over and we are alone."

"Or as you meet each one, which is rather inevitable where the Doctor is concerned, he can tell you himself."

Rose sniffed and nodded. "Can you tell me, though, tell me…" She inhaled and then looked at her reflection. "Nine and Ten, what do they say?"

Romana looked at the writing and let out a chuckle. "I think Nine is cautioning you against it to be honest."

"Why's that?"

"His message is simple. It says _run_."

Rose hiccupped and closed her eyes over her tears as her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, Doctor…"

"I take it that word has meaning for you," Romana asked curiously.

"It was the first word he ever said to me," Rose choked out. "I was surrounded by Autons that had taken the form of shop mannequins that wanted to kill me. A stranger's hand suddenly appeared, and when I looked up I saw a man with wild, ancient eyes that begged me to trust him as he told me to run. I took his hand and we ran." She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. "And we never stopped running. When he regenerated and was trying so hard to prove to me he was still the Doctor, _my_ Doctor it's the memory he used to convince me." She sniffed. "That one three-letter word just sums us up so perfectly."

"Why that sentimental old fool," Romana breezed wistfully. "I never thought him capable of such sentiment."

"Me neither," Rose chuckled inside her tears.

"As for the message from the man who turned himself human," Romana said softly as she traced her finger over the circular text. "His word is a promise."

"What does it say?"

" _Forever_."

Rose hiccupped again. "That was my promise to him," she corrected. "He asked me once, when we were standing on Woman's Wept, overlooking the frozen waves, how long I intended on staying with him. I said _forever_."

Romana smiled. "And he's holding you to that promise, it seems."

"I'd prefer to think that he's making that promise to me," Rose managed through her tears.

"I'm sure that he is." She took Rose's hands in hers and pulled her to a stand. "Now. Before I fix the mess you just made of your make-up, let's put you into the gown that the craftswomen of Gallifrey spent six months putting together."

"He gave me his blessing," Rose blurted suddenly as she allowed herself to be led toward the gown. "His Tenth self, I mean."

Romana merely hummed in question as she set about unfastening the beaded buttons that ran along the back of the gown.

When we left him back at Farrington, right before we left," Rose clarified. "For a moment he was the Doctor again."

Romana gave her a perplexed look. "Really?"

Rose nodded and wiped again at her eye. "I was nervous," she admitted. "Still so unsure about doing this, and how he would feel about me falling in love so quickly with his younger incarnation."

"Rose," Romana said with mild frustration. "They're the same man."

"I know," Rose assured quickly. "But. Oh. I dunno. It's strange to me, you know? I didn't grow up with this lifestyle and the instinct of _just knowing_. Men don't change faces like that on Earth. It takes some getting used to."

"I suppose."

"And so," she swallowed. "So I was worried that it would upset him, maybe. So perhaps I should call a delay on it, you know. Wait until he was himself again."

Romana paused in unfastening the gown and looked at Rose with worry. "And so now?"

"When he became my Doctor, even for those brief few moments, he told me that this memory – of our marriage – was his most cherished." She ran her hand along the soft satin of the gown. "In his entire millennium of life travelling the stars and witnessing the wonder of the universe, his memory of today is the one he cherishes the most."

"And that's as it should be," Romana replied with a smile. "This day only comes once in the lives of a Time Lord. It _should_ be his most important."

"I love him," Rose gushed on a shaking voice. "I love him so much."

Romana slid the gown off the mannequin and held it along her forearms as she presented it to her. "Then now's the time for you to show Gallifrey and all of her children just how much you do."

"Did I hear my name," a youthful voice chirped from the doorway. "Didn't you know it's rude to talk about someone behind their back?"

Romana narrowed her eyes at the young lad as Rose removed the gown from her hands. "Not quite as rude as it is to tell an elder that you think they're _being_ rude," she chided. She flicked her fingers to invite Gallifrey into the room. "And we weren't talking about Gallifrey the boy," She looked to Rose, who smiled beneath her drying tears. "We were talking about Gallifrey the planet, and how your mother is about to prove her love for her Time Lord to her, and to all of Gallifrey's children."

Gallifrey exaggerated an exhale of relief as he walked across the floor, his hands deep inside the pockets of the crimson trousers he wore. "Well that's good. For a moment there I thought you were talking about _my_ kids. I was worried that my older self had travelled back in time with a hoard of Time Tots in tow to watch." He rocked back on his heels. "Which sounds like something I'd do, but then again I couldn't. Not on Gallifrey at least. Time Lock laws and all that jazz." He pursed his lips. "I wonder what my wife looks like, then…"

Romana looked to his feet and to the dirty white Converse shoes that peeked out from the bottom of his trousers. "You won't find yourself a wife capable of producing Time Tots if you mix and match as badly as that. You were given boots to match your trousers and tunic, young Lord, wear them."

"Dad got mum, didn't he?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Gallifrey raised a brow. "You've met my dad, right? Fashion really isn't his forte. His fashion style could be described as mix and _not_ match."

Rose chuckled as she stepped into the open pool of the gown and pulled it up over her hips. "He looks very geek chic in his Tenth body. Very nicely put together."

Gallifrey kicked out his left leg, held at the knee of his trousers to pull it up just slightly, and pointed at his shoe. "Converse with a suit, Mum. And if he can do it, then I say that I can too."

Romana set her hands on her hips and growled just lightly. "Your father chose that outfit, young Lord, including the boots. You will wear it in its entirety, or you'll not be a part of the ceremony. Am I understood?"

"You wouldn't," he challenged.

"I would."

"Would not."

"Do you want to challenge me enough to test that?"

Gallifrey thumbed to the doorway. "Uhm. I think I'm just going to go change my shoes."

Romana clapped her hands. "Oh that would be a delightful idea, Gallifrey. Such a good decision, I'm proud of you."

He gave her a faux stare of annoyance. "Your pride in me just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, Auntie Romana."

"Your facetiousness makes me all hot and angry inside."

He folded his arms across his chest and tapped his foot on the floor, making sure that his converse toes peeked out the bottom of his trousers. He even went so far as to swing those toes from side to side to make those shoes show out even more. "How does clashing colours make you feel? Obsessive compulsive, by any chance?"

"Gallifrey…"

"Does this really, really annoy you? Crimson tunic and trousers with white shoes?"

Romana's eye twitched, but she chose not to bite – at least at anything other than her lip.

"Is that the _real_ reason that you want me to change shoes, because it trips that little switch inside you that seeks perfection?"

"No," she squeaked as she forced herself to turn toward Rose. Anything further she had to say died in her throat as she took in the vision before her. "By the will of Rassilon, Rose, you look simply breathtaking."

Gallifrey's admiration followed Romana's. "My God. Mum. You look beautiful."

Rose smiled at her son. "You think so?"

"Yes," he breathed somewhat reverently. He quickly cleared his throat. "That isn't to say that you aren't _always_ beautiful, Mum. Because you are. Beautiful, I mean. Always beautiful."

She held open her arms. "Come here, you little terror."

Gallifrey grinned a wide smile and launched into a run toward his mother. He squeaked as he leapt into her waiting arms and threw his arms around her waist. "You're going to stop both his hearts."

"You think so?"

"Full regeneration." He chuckled against her belly and then pulled backward. He took her hand in his and stepped a stride back far enough that he stretched her hands almost fully in front of her. "I think you'll be marrying his fifth self."

"Well let's hope that his fifth self doesn't end up a cranky old man, then."

Romana put her hands on Gallifrey's shoulders and looked past him toward the bride. "Even if he does end up a cranky old man, he'll still be the same man."

"And I'll still love him," Rose vowed inside a chuckle. "Although you'll help me conjure up ways of forcing another regeneration, yeah?"

"That goes without saying," Romana promised with a laugh. "Now." Her eyes fell back to Gallifrey. "About those shoes…"

Gallifrey slumped and let out a moan. "Oh come on, really?"

"Please, Gal," Rose pleaded gently. "Will you wear the boots, for me?"

He smiled. "Well. When you put it _that_ way, how can I refuse?"

Romana grunted. "Yet, when I ask…"

Gallifrey shrugged. "You just didn't ask me right, what can I say?" He caught a glare from her in response and poked out his tongue at her.

"Oh, just for that…"

Gallifrey let out a squeak and shot out of the door before Romana could catch up with him. His squeal could be heard fading out as he ran further down the corridor. The Time Lady merely rolled her eyes, huffed and turned back to Rose. "That child of yours…"

"You adore him," Rose challenged her. "I know you do."

Romana pulled a jar of face powder and a brush from the dressed. "I'll vehemently deny it."

Rose closed her eyes and let Romana work her magic on repairing the damage done to her previous work by her crying. "You know that the feeling is mutual, don't you? Gal adores you."

Romana couldn't help but smile, but refrained from commenting. She quietly continued her work, and finally finished by blowing a puff of breath onto Rose's face to blow away the lose powder.

"There," she said quietly as Rose's eyes slowly fluttered open. "I think we're finished." She took Rose's hands and led her to the full length mirror at the side of the room. "What do you think?"

Rose gasped as she took in her own reflection. She held at the skirt of her silken gown and twisted from side to side to look at its elegant – yet simple - magnificence. "Wow."

"I should be able to think of a few more wonderful descriptives that would be far more appropriate," she took a breath. "But _wow_ is really all I can come up with myself."

"Will he like it?"

Romana snorted. "I don't think he'll be capable of saying even _wow_." She smoothed out Rose's dress. "I'd be surprised if he'd even be capable of speech."

That made Rose smile. "You think so?"

"I know so."

Rose inhaled a deep breath and put on her brightest of smiles before she allowed herself to exhale it again. "I still can't believe I'm marrying him, my Doctor."

"Neither can the majority of the universe," Romana joked. "But Rose. We should go now. It's time you became the wife of the Lord Doctor."

"Yes," Rose breathed as she checked herself over one last time. "Yes. It is."


	31. Consent

A/N: This is part one ... Abrupt ending I know. I just couldn't continue to write this right at this point. I'm typing on a potentially broken wrist right now (Don't ask because the only answer I'll give is "I was Murphy in a past life, just so you know.") and it really, really hurts for me to keep going with this tonight.

But I know me too well to know that if I don't post this tonight that I'll end up spending all day on it rewriting the damn thing and we'll never get to part two of the ceremony. And to be perfectly honest with you, I want the actually ceremony to be it's own chapter - not the ending of something else. Let me do it some justice, yea?

Oh and a shout out to LovelyAmberLight. She gave me a delightfully awesome idea to use and I've decided to completely run with it. I certainly hope that I can live up to her expectations as I write this idea out ... (putting my own delightful spin on it, of course). Thanks, Amber!

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose's feeling of royal elegance seemed to falter just slightly as she crossed the threshold from the dressing room into the console room of the TARDIS. The room she walked into made Rose's breath draw in and took her back into days past when she was a wide-eyed youngster discovering the TARDIS for the first time.

"Sweetheart," she managed on a shaking breath. "You changed your desktop theme."

Romana let out a breath that shuddered with equal emotion – but not necessarily the same. "Oh by Rassilon's crest, are you ill, TARDIS? You look terrible."

"I think she looks beautiful," Rose said as she wiped at the corner of her eye.

"You think she would have made an effort for her pilot's big day," Romana complained as she took in the barren and organic looking room with disgust. "How could you strip yourself bare on today of all days? You should be ashamed of yourself with this display of indecency. Dress yourself this instant!"

"No," Rose pleaded quietly. She turned to Romana and pressed her lips together in a smile that was sorrowful. After a breath she sniffed and took a breath. "This is how she looked when we first met, me and TARDIS."

"Oh?"

Rose looked up and smiled to the small roundels in the ceiling as she touched her fingers to a coral strut beside the door. "This is how I remember her every day, so natural, so magnificent." She dropped her eyes down to Romana. " _This_ is how she should always look," she sighed. "A natural wonder. She doesn't need the fancy dress, no make up… Do you, old girl?"

Romana let out a soft chuckle. "Yet another reason that you and the Doctor belong together. Your love of this crazy machine." She petted the coral strut. "And it's very clear that she loves you just as dearly."

"For a moment in time, she and I were one, Romana." Rose gave her a smile. "We're sisters TARDIS and I."

"Is that a story to be told, Rose?"

Rose shook her head. "It can't be told, Romana. Not this one, not until it happens."

"And why's that?"

"Because it kills a Time Lord and ends a war…" She sighed. "A war that never ends."

"How can you end a war that never ends?"

"Exactly." Rose shrugged as she looked back at Romana. "Round and round we go, yeah?"

Romana's jaw dropped as she let out a knowing breath. "Ahh. One of _those_."

"One of _those_ , exactly." She smiled and nodded to the door. "Do we wait for the music to start, or do we just walk on out there?"

Romana frowned. "Music? What music?"

Rose's brows flew high. "No bridal march or anything like that in a Gallifreyan wedding?"

"Not that I've ever seen."

Rose seemed just a little disappointed. "Oh. I was kind of hoping…"

An ancient and organic melody filled the cavernous console room. It was a song forged from the very creation of time herself and sung in a melodic voice so hauntingly beautiful that the breath of both woman caught deep within their chests.

"By Rassilon, what is that," Romana managed airlessly as she battled to find her breath.

"Thank you," Rose choked as she kissed at her fingertips and blew it toward the centre console. "If ever I wanted someone to sing for me on my wedding day, it'd be you."

Romana's eyes widened. "That's _her_ song?"

" _Our_ song," Rose corrected as the voices of a hundred TARDIS sisters joined the melody. "And, oh, if you haven't vamped it up a bit, you little minx."

The doors to the front of the TARDIS flew open and the light of dual suns filled the console room. Rose stood a moment to bask in the swirling warmth and breathe in the aroma of a new planet waiting for her just beyond the doors.

"Oh I've missed this," she breathed to the TARDIS. "Different ground beneath my feet, different sky." Her eyes opened and her chin dropped. "And what's that smell?"

Romana grinned. "Schlenk blossoms."

"Schlenk blossoms," Rose repeated with a smile. "Of course."

"The Doctor's favourite smell in all the universe," she said gently as she held out her hand to Rose.

Rose took her hand. "That's only because he never smelled the wonder of his freshly bathed infant son's fluffy little head."

Romana led her to the doors. "Then when you both share in the joy of a new arrival, perhaps his choice of favourite smell will change."

"And he'll add to his list of least favourite smells at the same time."

They stepped through the open doorway amidst the song of the TARDIS and into the bright orange light of the setting suns. Rose blinked in the bright natural light a few times to try and let her eyes become accustomed to natural over electric lighting and then dared to take a look around her.

Crimson and yellow colours seemed to engulf the entire landscape, and while she knew that her eyes were supposed to seek out and fall upon her groom waiting by the waters for her to join him, she was unable to do so. Awe filled her completely as the landscape of the Doctor's home filled her with a vision she never thought she'd ever see. She gasped and covered her mouth with the fingers of both her hands as she twirled in place, step after cautious step across the crimson grasses along the embankment.

"My God," she breathed reverently as she opened up her arms, her smile, and twirled amongst the yellow blossoms at her feet. "This is magnificent."

"Welcome to Gallifrey," Romana called to her with pride in her voice. Pride quickly turned to order, however, as she tried to coax Rose toward the Riverbank. "Explore and dance later. Right now, you have a Lord waiting for you."

Rose continued to marvel at the beauty before her, of the brilliant colours. "How can I possibly take my eyes off this," she moaned softly with her eyes locked on the silver leaved trees that seemed to burst into glorious flame as the leaves caught the rays of the suns overhead. She followed behind Romana, but continued to twirl and gape at the magnificence surrounding her. "I've never seen anything so brilliant in my entire life."

Hands touched tenderly at her waist and guided her into another twirl. She giggled with absolute glee as she raised her arms up and completed a twirling pirouette. The twirl ended with the Doctor's hand on her hip, and his hand in hers.

"And I've never seen anything so beautiful in all of my lives," he countered gently as he pulled her against him and slowly moved them in a dance in time with the song being sung by TARDIS. "Now," he breathed against her ear as he danced them toward the banks of the River. "It's tradition that any and all dancing is supposed to occur _after_ the ceremony has closed. But if this is the tradition of the people of Earth, then I am more than happy to oblige my beloved on her wedding day."

Rose sighed against his chest. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I just got caught up in the splendour of this beautiful landscape. It's so much more magnificent than I could've ever imagined."

"Why didn't I bring you here, Rose," he queried softly.

"Because you couldn't," she answered before she could think.

He stopped them dancing and held her hips as he looked down with her with worry in his eyes. "Why not? What happened?"

Her eyes widened and she inhaled sharply as she tried to think of something, _anything_ that didn't involve his planet being destroyed. She was saved having to answer by the voice of her son beside them.

"Time Lock, Dad. We're here with you, now, so she couldn't come back with _him_." He smoothed himself in between the Doctor and Rose in an effort to separate them. "Now. If you'll be a good Time Lord and please walk away from the bride and join your brother at the riverbank before Romana has a conniption." He looked to his mother and winked.

She smiled in relief and in thanks for the quick save.

The Doctor brushed himself down and looked sheepishly across the grasses toward the bank, where his brother stood beside Romana with shocked wide eyes and a crimson robe draped haphazardly across his forearms and shoulders as though suddenly and unceremoniously dumped upon him. At his feet was a discarded golden headpiece and helmet. Romana looked quite less than pleased as she stood with her arms across her chest and her foot impatiently tapping on the ground.

He cleared his throat. "Yes. Well. I should, perhaps, prepare for our vows." He looked toward Rose with a boyish smile of a puppy in love. "I just couldn't control myself. To see you in awe and wonder and dancing like you were…"

"Geez dad," Gallifrey moaned. "You're gonna give me diabetes if you keep that up."

The Doctor patted his shoulder. "Time Lords don't suffer from diabetes, my boy. The TARDIS makes quite sure of that."

"Yeah, but I dunno that she's ever encountered this level of saccharine sweetness." He put both hands on his father's back and rather forcibly pushed his father toward the riverbank. "Right, Auntie Romana. Got _him_ back in line. Your job is to get mum here."

Romana glided quickly along the grass and hooked her arm into Rose's. "Focus," she ordered tightly. "This ceremony needs your total focus, or it has the potential to seriously harm you both."

Rose frowned. "What did you just say?"

Romana straightened Rose's dress and stroked at her hair to settle the fly away bits. "This is a telepathic joining of your minds and soul, Rose. Not just a simple handfasting." She let out a breath as she brushed grass from the skirt of Rose's dress. "Of course, a handfasting is part of the proceedings, but it's such a small part of it."

"Maybe we should've landed here a day early so I could get my excitement of actually being here out of my system." She sighed. "New sights and sounds, maybe we should wait? Make sure I can focus."

Romana raised her eyes and a brow. "I didn't just hear you say that."

Rose winked.

Romana narrowed her eyes and let out a little growl. "And here I was thinking that your child got all of his attitude from his father."

"He has a little bit of me running through his veins."

"That poor poor child."

Rose hooked her hand around Romana's elbow and leaned toward her. "Take me to my groom, Romana. Let's get this ceremony underway while we still have light."

The Doctor was just settling his golden helmet back on his head when he felt her presence at his side. The high curl of the shoulders on his headpiece prevented him looking along his shoulder at her approach, and so he had to turn to face her fully as she moved closer and was given by Romana to Gallifrey to allow him to walk her the remaining short distance between them.

His breath caught at her smile, and the brilliance of it. This woman could wear a burlap sack, have filthy hair and no makeup, and that smile alone would make her the single most beautiful creature in the entire land.

…He quickly amended that to _entire universe_.

He'd found her to be exquisite as she exited the TARDIS in full bridal glory. He marvelled at her beauty as she unashamedly danced in the crimson grasses. He _knew_ beyond all doubt that he aw her as the greatest natural wonder in the entire multiverse and beyond …

…But he hadn't prepared himself for the beauty that would ignite from within her when she gave him her most brilliant smile. He thought for sure that both of his hearts had stopped beating inside his chest. He knew that his breathing had ceased – so did his brother, apparently, who tipped down and quietly reminded him to breathe.

He found his breath only when little Gallifrey cleared his throat and indicated for him to take Rose's hands in his.

"Yes. Yes. Thank you, my son," he blustered quickly as he looked down and watched as his hands found his bride's and curled around her fingers. He inhaled as he let his eyes shift back upward to look into her face. His gaze stopped at her lips, and that incredible smile of hers. "Rassilon…"

"Doctor?"

He blinked quickly and shot his eyes to hers. He felt guilty at the look of alarm in her gaze. "I'm sorry Rose. So sorry. It's just that you look so ethereally magnificent that I feel unworthy to look at you directly."

That made her chuckle. "Liar."

"Oh, I'm not lying," he assured her.

"Do you still want to do this? Get married, I mean?"

His head tipped to one side and his expression fell to one of pure adoration. "More than anything."

"Thank Rassilon for that," Braxiatel muttered with a moan. "Do you mind if we get on with it, then?"

The Doctor frowned at his brother. "Why? You have somewhere else you need to be?"

"Always," he answered with a one-sided smirk and a wave in his brow. "So? Shall we begin?"

Rose looked at the Doctor with amusement dancing in her eyes as she tipped her head lightly in Braxiatel's direction. "Best to get on with it, yeah?"

"Oh yes."

Braxiatel cleared his throat and lifted his head to ensure that his voice would be heard clear along the riverbank, and to the handful of unnamed spectators that were scattered along the treeline.

"Today marks the day that our Lord Doctor, former Lord President of Gallifrey and renegade cousin of the chapterhouse of Lungbarrow binds himself under Time's watch for all eternity to his beloved Artytior, child of Earth and honoured cousin of the chapterhouse of Heartshaven."

"Renegade?" the Doctor muttered through his teeth and under his breath. "Did you have to mention that?"

"You bet I did," Braxiatel answered with a wink before he opened up his voice once more.

"This union has the approval of the House of Lords, the home of Lungbarrow and the cousins of Heartshaven. Will those who represent each house please step forward to give consent to these two beloveds who stand before us today."

There was silence for just a moment as they waited for the first of two statements of Consent to be spoken. For the longest time it was only the song of the TARDIS and the sounds of the breeze through the trees that answered Braxiatel's request.

"Gallifrey," Romana hissed out of the side of her mouth. "That's your part."

"What?" He gasped. "Me? Oh, yes. Sorry." He inhaled a breath to recite the words that he'd been instructed to say. "I, GallifreyPeterTylerLungbarrowmas of the chapterhouse of lungbarrow, son to both Rose Tyler and the Doctor do hereby give consent on behalf of the cousins of Lungbarrow for our Lord Doctor to take Rose Tyler as his bonded partner and wife." He looked to Romana with high brows of question as to whether or not he got it right. His breath exhaled and his shoulders in relief at her smile.

Braxiatel then looked to Romana, who stood beside young Gallifrey with her hands cradled against her belly and her shoulders held high. She inhaled a deep breath and lifted her head with pride. "I am Romanadvoratrelundar of Heartshaven, and I give consent for my honoured cousin to take the Doctor as her husband. For them to be permanently bonded as one until the very end of time herself."

Gallifrey tipped in a lean toward her. "I forgot that bit, didn't I?"

The Doctor winked at his child. "You did great, Gal. Perfect."

"And now," Braxiatel continued. "With the consent of both houses, I must confirm the consent of both parties." He walked toward Rose and raised his hands to touch at her temples. "Close your eyes, Miss Tyler."

Rose's eyes shot wide and she jerked backward. "Hold on, what?"

Braxiatel frowned a little in surprise. "This is a permanent and unbreakable union, Rose. I have to make sure you're here under your own will and that this union is purely and one hundred percent consensual between the two of you."

"I'm not lettin' you in my head," Rose said with panic. "You can't go in there. I know things. Things you can't know…"

"Then shield them from me," he said with a huff. "I'm looking for your consent, not for anything else. Close it all off behind a wall or a door."

The Doctor squeezed at her hands. "It's okay, Rose. I trust him, you should to."

"Promise me," she whispered worriedly. "Don't go lookin'."

Braxiatel smiled and nodded. "I won't go _lookin_ '."

Rose closed her eyes and nodded her consent. Her breath drew in and out of her with worry as she felt his fingers move to her temples. Her hands clutched tightly at the Doctor's when she felt the nudge, and then the overwhelming sensation of a telepathic master entering her mind. She whimpered at the unusual pressure against her temples as his fingers shifted just slightly to release their connection. Her breath then released from between her lips and she found herself tilting forward as though being pulled by him as he left her mind.

She inhaled a deep gasp and looked up into Braxiatel's horrified expression. "Oh no," she gasped. "How much did you see in there?"

Braxitel's eyes cleared quickly and he shook his head as he cleared his throat. "Nothing, Rose. Nothing except your absolute commitment and devotion toward the Lord Doctor and your consent to this union."

"Then why do you look so distraught," she queried weakly.

"I've never been inside a human mind before," he lied flawlessly. "Your mind is so unorganized, so convoluted and…"

"Oh go on with you, then" she groaned. "So I don't have the bloody Time Lord superior biology nonsense."

Braxiatel offered her one last look before he turned to his brother and quickly performed the same examination. He drew back quickly with a nod.

"Both parties freely consent to this union of the minds and soul, and so now we begin."

The Doctor and Rose faced each other. He gave her a warm smile, which immediately abated any fears she had about what Braxiatel must've seen in her mind. She stroked her thumb along the knuckles of his hands and mouthed her love for him inside of three English words.

He repeated them back in kind.


	32. The Wedding of Rose Tyler

A/N: I'm seriously just making this shit up as I go along...

Really. Weddings are NOT my thing at all. They bore me to tears. Even my own. Ask me to remember any of my own wedding and I'll shrug and say "Uhm, there was some praying and then we kissed at the end..." Seriously. I have the attention span and patience of a gnat and really, weddings involve a lot of focus and playing nice to people you really don't like all that much. I'm not so good at any of that...  
Soooo that all said ... I am making this up as i go along and am quite possibly failing miserably at it.  
Additionally, I am medicated with a boo-boo owie hurting dominant wrist (which is more in the lower thumb area than anything ... all very pretty colours though, which is kinda groovy) so that attention span of a gnat thing ... yeah. Totally in play here today.  
What that also means is that I am struggling and therefore deflecting and digressing and generally being annoying. I know this. I do. Please forgive me for that...

~~oooOOOooo~~

Braxiatel held up a pair of golden chains, one of them a thick fob chain, and the other a delicate twisted rope that glistened in the fading sunlight. Immediately Rose recognized the thicker chain and the brilliant blue stone that hung from its centre. She'd seen that chain hanging down the Doctor's naked chest with its blue stone seating itself in the space between his two hearts almost every evening in the blissful six months they'd shared together before they were separated at Canary Wharf. She'd long admired it, but had never asked where he'd gotten it. Every time they came together, however, she noticed how he'd begin their coupling by holding the stone inside his palm as he closed his eyes and whispered softly in his native tongue. She had considered it an odd ritual for him to go through each and every time they made love, but the Doctor wasn't exactly what one would call a _usual_ kind of fellow. She'd learned quickly to simply lay back into the pillows of their shared bed to prepare and wait until he was ready…

…Because _when_ he was ready …..

She tried very hard not to think about that when Braxiatel began to speak again. She listened closely to his words as he spoke of the importance of the bonding pendants. That how, blessed by the guardians of Rassilon's Tomb, they were to be held to them as a reminder of their eternal commitment to each other and that how not time, separation or nor death could sever the bond created on this day.

Braxiatel continued to speak of how this bond would awaken in all incarnations of the Doctor: past, present and future. He warned his brother of the dangers of such a bond and how he shouldn't view the commitment they both made this evening with a frivolous mind. That both partners must understand that the strength and power of the bond is so great that the pains of separation – even for a short moment – can be great enough to drive a Time Lord to his knees in agony.

…and with those words Rose gasped and fell to hers.

There were several sounds of shock and worry from all around her, but the only voice she could focus on was of the Doctor as he dropped onto a knee in front of her and softly called her name. A sob escaped her throat as she felt the shaking and tender touch of his hand on her cheek and she threw her arms up to clutch desperately at his wrist with both hands.

"We can't do this," she whimpered sadly as she studied the concern in his eyes. "We can't."

His brows dropped into a light frown of worry as his eyes flicked their focus between hers. "Why not? Rose, what's wrong?"

She closed her eyes and took a long moment to press her cheek into his hand. His wrist was still held tightly in her hands, and he made no attempt to pull it free. She spoke as her eyes slowly fluttered open to look through blurry vision into his worried face. "I love you," she assured him fiercely. "So don't think for a second that I don't want to do this, because I do. I really want this." She turned her head to press her lips against his palm. "But I can't do it. Not now. It's not right."

He exhaled a hard and disappointed breath. "You still can't quite get hold of the whole _different incarnation_ thing, can you?" He watched her eyes harden and even though his one hand fought against the hold of her two, he managed to cup his hand behind her head to make her look at him. "I'm _him_ , Rose. Every one of me that you've ever met and ever will meet is going to be _him_ – The Time Lord Doctor who loves you."

She winced and sniffed. "I know that," she whispered hoarsely.

"No you.."

"I do," she vowed on a passionate whisper as she released his wrist to clutch her hands tightly at his jaw. "I _get_ it, Doctor. I've met three of you now, and I've learned that it doesn't matter if you wear leather, have big ears, wild hair or really, really _great_ hair. Whether you look like an eccentric scientist on speed, are a miserable grump, or if you have all the energy of an excitable bouncy puppy – I'm going to love you." She inhaled and then frowned at herself as she let her eyes fall from his and shook her head. "No. It's more than that. More than that Hallmark version of things…"

"Rose…?"

She lifted her eyes back to his and stroked at the sides of his mouth with her thumbs. "I _love_ you, Doctor. This you, your Ninth you, your Tenth you – and I reckon every other you that takes my hand. I promise you that I love you more than you could ever comprehend – more than _I_ can even comprehend to be honest with you."

"Then why," he pressed quietly, with his usually wide and confident eyes lacking their youthful spark. "After you vow to love me in this regeneration and the next, why can't you take me as yours now?" He grasped onto her wrists and held them on his knee when she inhaled a shuddering breath and looked down. "What's holding you back?"

She looked back up at him, her cheeks streaked with tears. "The pain," she admitted softly.

He frowned. "What pain?"

She tried to answer but was caught out by struggling breath of fighting against oncoming sobs.

"Are you hurt," he ventured with concern.

Rose shook her head. "No. I'm…" She paused and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. She exhaled through pursed lips and then inhaled once more. Once sure that she could speak without a hiccup, she let her eyes move back to his. "Okay." Another steadying breath. "Doctor."

He smiled at his name being spoken so purposefully and her attempt to maintain her calm when she obviously had none. "Rose," he replied in kind.

She let out another breath and touched her tongue to her lip as she inhaled deeply though her nose. "Braxiatel says it hurts to be apart…" She touched lightly at his temple with her fingertips. "If we bond like this."

The Doctor nodded a short bob of his head. "That's true. The pain of a forced separation can be considered unbearable for a Lord or Lady to bear, but," He stopped short and inhaled a breath of understanding. "Oh my dear Rose."

"So then you and me, and…" she swallowed worriedly. "What happens to you then?"

The Doctor lifted a hand to stroke his fingers through the waterfall of her hair. "You mean when I take you back to him," he stated more than asked. He leaned forward to press the tenderest of kisses against the side of her mouth. "I'll be taking you back to _me_ , Rose. I'll feel your loss, of course I will." He rocked backward and held his hand at her cheek. "But I'll still be with you." He rolled his eyes upward and smiled. "Even if it is a few hundred centuries from now in my timeline."

"But…"

"And there's nothing to say that I won't break the rules of time to come and visit you from time to time when I need to see your beautiful smile and feel your touch." He winked. "Possessive though I may be, I'll never deny myself the right to be with you if any one of me needs you."

Rose stared at him with wide open eyes, not blinking at all until he finished speaking. At that moment her eyes fluttered a series of fast blinks to shake the sudden imagery that flashed through her mind. She made sure to capture his eyes with hers and felt sudden guilt knowing that the cheeky glint that had reignited was about to be extinguished within them once again.

Gently, she took his hands in hers and stroked at his wrists with her thumbs. "My Doctor," she began gently as she watched her thumbs draw along his wrists. "There comes a day in your future when you can't just come and visit me whenever you want." She heard his small gasp of realization and raised her eyes up quickly to his. "When I'm not with any of your incarnations. We win a battle against your greatest foes, but suffer a great loss when I get trapped on the other side of a dimensional wall and no way to get back."

"That's impossible," he rasped out. "We can travel between dimensions. How does it become so impossible that I can't come to the rescue of my wife and child?"

She pressed her thumb into his lips to quiet him. "You just _can't_ ," she answered hoarsely. "I can't say why, you just can't."

He fought to keep quiet and focused on the press of her thumb against his lips to keep him that way. He nodded, however, to let her know he was listening.

"That separation," she continued. "It was forced. It was painful for us both. I lost you, but at least I got to keep my family, my mum, Dad, best friend and my unborn baby boy." She smiled ruefully. " I even got a baby brother out of the deal." She stopped there and inhaled deeply. "But you, Doctor. You lost it all. Everything. You lost me. You lost Gallifrey." She stopped immediately at Braxiatel's inhale and slid her eyes up to where he towered over her. "You lost everything."

Braxiatel said nothing, but the Doctor's eyes cleared as he finally understood her concern. He breathed her name sadly.

She flicked her eyes back to his. "Doctor, it was almost eight and a half years for me. Eight and a half years where I wasn't the other half of a Gallifreyan married pair. No bond. But my God did it hurt. Every day was so painful."

"I'm sorry," he breathed sadly.

Rose pressed on. "I can't say how long it's been for you, Doctor. I don't know if time runs linear between universes and if you held out for the same amount of time that I did…"

"Two years, seven months, three weeks and five days," he mumbled quietly. "At least that's what his TARDIS has on file."

"I was nearly six months pregnant when we were separated," she continued. "With a little boy you couldn't wait to meet." Her eyes fell from his and she smiled serenely as she remembered back to an expectant pin-striped Time Lord. "From the moment you told me I was expecting, you got more bouncy puppy than you normally are."

"Tell me," he asked softly.

"We'd just finished making love and all of a sudden out of nowhere you suddenly jumped out of the bed, completely starkers, took my hand and rushed me to the medical bay of the TARDIS."

"Did I do that, then?"

"Have you ever wanted a child, Rose Tyler," she said with a laugh in her best imitation of his voice and accent. "Well I hope so, because I believe we're having one. Well, by _we_ , I mean _you_ , because I can't exactly carry a child now, can I? Not biologically suited for the task, me. But you, oh, you. How brilliant your biology is for carrying a child – and not just any child, mind you. No. This child is the progeny of a Time Lord. A Time Lord, Rose! Imagine that. A Time Lord child. Oh, and we'll call him Gallifrey, what do you think of that? I think that's a brilliant name, Gallifrey. Gallifrey Peter Tyler. I suppose we should put your dad's name in there. We should, yeah? That's tradition down there on Earth. I hope that him looking like your dad isn't tradition, though, because our boy won't look a thing like him. Nope. Brown hair he'll have, not ginger. Brown like mine, _great_ like mine. He'll be lithe and tall like his dad, and smart. Oh, Rose. He's going to be brilliant, so brilliant. I can't wait to meet him. Oh, how brilliant it'll be when I meet him for the first time…" She hiccupped and hung her head. "When you met him for the first time, Doctor. You didn't even know who _you_ were, let alone who he was." Her sodden eyes looked up at him again. "You can't ask me to put you through that, Doctor. Not again, and especially not with a marriage bond in place."

He coaxed his fingers into her hair and gently brought her face up to his. With deliberate tenderness, he kissed softly at the centre of each tear track on her cheeks. "This pain is mine to face," he said gently. "And it's a pain I'm willing to face if it means I'm a part of the both of you from here until the end of my time."

"But…"

"There's no _but_ ," he corrected with firm gentleness. "I have half a dozen lifetimes to prepare myself for that inevitability," he said on a firmer voice. The firmness then fell to tenderness. "And if you'll give me the choice, I'd rather take the two and a half years of heartache if it gives me six extra lifetimes of being your husband."

Rose hiccupped and nodded to show her understanding.

"Pain," he murmured softly. "I'm a Lord of time, Rose Tyler. And I'm pretty sure my people actually invented pain, so I think I can take a little bit of the unpleasant stuff. With the right telepathic shielding and exercise, I can minimize the pain I'll feel when we're ultimately separated." He inhaled and pressed a kiss to the apple of one cheek. "I'll take that pain because I know that it's only a relatively short time before I'll have you and Gallifrey back in my life again. In no time at all, you'll both be back with me and we'll be together for all eternity after that." He looked into her eyes and offered her a wink. "How does that sound?"

"You would really want to go through that?"

"The version of me who's currently functioning on a single heart and not too much actual intelligence already has," he began in a joking manner that slowly turned into a more serious tone. "He allowed himself to do this, to know you, to love you, and to lose you. That was his decision, made no doubt for the same reason I'm making mine."

"And what's that," she asked on a meek and quiet voice.

"To prove my solemn oath to you, Rose Tyler, that I will have and hold, worship and honour, in sickness and in health – forever and ever, amen, hallelujah and praise whoever – as long as this life lives and every other regeneration that follows. I will be devoted to you, and to only you. I will wait six lifetimes to hold you and make love to you again. I will gladly take on the pain of being apart from you because I know that it will make any moment I have with you mean so much more to me. And I swear to you on Rassilon's tomb that I'll make it mean that much more to you, too."

Rose sniffed wetly and leaned forward to press her lips clumsily against his. "Marry me," she mumbled against his mouth, finalizing her question with a trio of punctuating kisses.

"I believe that's what we're here for," he answered with a chuckle.

"Well," Braxiatel muttered from above them both. "I'd say it's a safe assumption that my brother has concluded his part of the vows." He sighed with his chin raised high and his eyes on the clouds as he dropped his hand to aid the Doctor to his feet. Slowly he lowered his chin to look at the now somewhat disheveled groom. "And as is so very typical of my brother, not a single part of that is as is written in the traditional vows of a Gallifreyan marriage."

"Sorry, Braxiatel," Rose pleaded gently as she was assisted to her feet and smoothed free of wrinkles, fly away hair and grassy knees. "I just had to know…"

"And so you should," Braxiatel came back quickly. He flicked his eyes to his brother, who was adjusting the seat of his helmet and shoulder piece. "He's not exactly a prize winning steed, this one. Let me take you to Arcadia and perhaps introduce you to Time Lords who might be more worthy of you."

"I think he's perfect," Rose swooned.

Braxiatel lifted his brows. "If you say so, Rose Tyler." He flicked through the pages in a thick blue—bound book. "Where were we, then? Oh yes, the hand fasting."

The Doctor looked toward Rose with a smile. "Ready?"

She nodded. "Oh yes."

Braxiatel lay the back of Rose's left hand in his palm and held the chains of the two necklaces high enough that the two blue stones twisted, turned, and ticked along her palm. "Rose Tyler, do you consent to binding yourself to the Lord Doctor. Do you freely consent to the joining of your timelines, to forsake all others for all of time?"

Rose was mesmerised as she watched the swing of the glistening stones. She barely heard Braxiatel's words, but she knew what he was saying. With a nod and a smile toward the Doctor, she answered her consent in a trio of Galifreyan words taught to her by Romana.

"Phonetics are slightly off," Braxiatel chided with a smile as he lowered the chains so that they pooled around the stone pendants now laid flat in her palm. "But they are difficult for off worlders to get their tongues around, so nice effort."

"I think she did just fine," the Doctor countered with a wink toward her.

"Yes," Braxiatel moaned as he took hold of the Doctor's right hand to place his palm over Rose's. "You haven't heard yourself attempt Gallifreyan in quite some time, have you?"

"Oh get on with it."

Braxiatel held both hands around the Doctor's and Rose's cupped hands. "Up until this moment, both of you have been separate in thought, word, and action. Up until this moment, your timelines sought different paths. Up until this moment, the universe held you to different paths within her maze. Against the odds, and from across the great expanse of time and space you found each found the one who can cradle your hearts and carry your burdens as you need them carried yourself.

He drew a golden sash from around his neck and slowly, silently, wrapped it around their wrists in a firm looping eight pattern.

"This sash is the symbol of the lives you are choosing to lead together and of the bond you wish to share. The seal of Rassilon is our symbol for eternity, an infinite looping figure that has no beginning and no end, as the loop of this ribbon around your wrists represents the love that the two of you swear to all today."

He let the ends of the ribbon hang at either end og the figure-8, and once again held their cupped hands in his. "May you both know nothing but happiness from this day forward. May you both swear upon the Tomb of Rassilon that you understand and consent to the spiritual bonding of the minds, hearts, timelines and souls – until the very end of Time herself."

Both the Doctor and Rose stared into each other's eyes as they affirmed their consent in the Doctor's very ancient language.

Braxiatel paused a moment for dramatics and then inhaled a deep breath and shared a look between the bonding pair. "Rose, please raise your right hand and place the tips of your three middle finders against the Doctor's left temple?"

She did so with a shaking hand and a nervous smile.

"Lord Doctor, will you please raise your left hand and place the tips of your three middle fingers against Rose's right temple?"

He did so with far less nervousness than Rose, and with far more deftness and control as he easily found his hand's position. With a wink toward his bride, the Doctor shifted his head to be able to press his lips against her wrist. "Are you ready?"

Rose's eyes widened and she licked at her lip as she nodded.

"Yes, well you'd better be," Braxiatel warned as he stood alongside their joined and tied hands. He gave the ribbon a quick pet. "Because you're at the point of no return now."

"Goody," she breathed nervously as she watched Braxiatel's hands rise so that he could touch a hand to each of their temples to assist in the bonding. "This doesn't hurt, does it?"

"Not at all," the Doctor assured her. "Just a little pressure and…"

He suddenly grit his teeth tightly as the sudden three-way connection ignited between them. Centuries of memories, of feelings of loss and love and hope and happiness burst out of his chest and curled around the tiny woman in front of him. Through open eyes he watched his bride struggle within the sudden cacophony of her twenty-nine years of thoughts and memories trying to merge with those of a Time Lord well into his seventh century.

"I've got you, Rose," he promised as he watched through the rush of combining energies her eyes slowly flutter shut and she slowly began to sway on her feet. In instinct, he shifted to separate their connection to catch her if she fell.

"You can't release just yet," Braxiatel warned through gritted teeth as he pressed his fingers more firmly into their temples. "We're not done…"

"It's too much for her," the Doctor warned as Rose's energies slammed into his chest to war against his own.

"Don't break contact, Thete."

Although his vision was quickly fading as the swirling energies of their timelines coming together increased and pulsed between them, the Doctor caught sight of a figure moving in behind Rose. Dressed in an outfit no man on Gallifrey would ever be caught wearing outside of a period costume ball, and with long hair unkempt with untamed curls that framed a roguishly handsome face, there was only one man it could be.

"I've got her, Doctor," a silken smooth voice purred in over the din with affection as he circled his arms around Rose's waist and held her against his chest. "Now you just relax and give in to it. This is where the part where the bonding becomes everything you dreamed it would be."

"Hold her," the Doctor begged in a straining voice. "Don't let her go."

"I won't," he answered as she fell against him. "I promise."


	33. Speaking his Name

A/N: That's it! I'm done! No more smoochie woochie wedding stuff ... this is it, so let me get to the really fun stuff, yeah? Like John ... and aliens ... and stuff...

I apologise to all for the long winded pathway that led here. I am the queen of digression, and so very very long winded that I just take ages to get anywhere ... but thanks to all of you that followed me here and commented to keep me going! I appreciate your kind words very muchly.

Not finished with Eight, yet. There is a reason that he's on Gallifrey, and that'll all be resolved next chapter ... and then we head back to Farrington where all the bloody good stuff is about to go down. Very excited, me...

thanks again!

Oh, and the wrist is being x-rayed tonight ... wish me luck... Curse being just shy of six feet tall and slipping ass over tit, eh? If I was short, this wouldn't have happened!

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose knew that she was weakening under the onslaught of almost three decades of memories rising from her subconscious to swirl and whip around her as though she were standing inside the eye of a killer tornado. She gasped at the barrage of images from her childhood, of scraped knees, schoolyard scuffles, hand holding and kiss-chasey in the playground. She held out a hand as visions flew by of her mother reading her stories, weeping over photo albums, introducing her to various " _uncles_ " who spent some nights at their flat, but never stayed too long afterward. Words whispered and kissed at her ear, some kind, some rude, some heartfelt and others simply mean.

It was too much for her to handle, all this remembrance coming to her all at once, and she found her balance faltering under the pressure of it. She clutched at her hair and dragged her head down as her mind screamed out her inability to withstand it.

"Rose…"

His voice. His comforting and ancient voice called to her through the ripping winds of the swirling images. She lifted her head to look through the gap between her forearms at the man beyond her storm and gasped at the sight that met her.

The Doctor, the one she was currently vowing to have and to hold for all eternity, stood at the very centre of a 13-man shallow V formation on the other side of her spinning vortex. His arms held out to her in an aching request for her to cross through the confusion holding her inside to join him

"Come to me, Rose. It's okay, I've got you."

She dropped her arms from her head and looked for a way out of her swirling prison. She swung left and then right, throwing her arms in a helpless twist to the back and front of her with every turn.

She finally stopped looking around her and gave her new husband a look of fear. She shook her head as she mouthed that she couldn't do it.

A figure broke from the formation flanking behind the Doctor and strode with slow and careful strides toward her. He offered the Doctor a supportive look, and went so far as to pat his arm on his way past.

"Hold her," the Doctor ordered gently. "Don't let her go"

The figure gave a nod to the Doctor and then turned toward the spinning vortex. He smiled a lazy smile that matched his lazy blue eyes and pulled a fob watch from the waist pocket of his intricately embroidered vest and let it hang from the crook of his finger to swing like a pendulum across his hips.

"I won't," he answered as he stepped confidently through the walls of Rose's vortex and closed the distance between them. "I promise."

Rose let the sounds of her memories fall into the background as she watched this stranger drop his head, flick open the watch and take a look at the time.

"Doctor?"

At her whispered question of his identity he snapped the watch closed and lifted his eyes to her. "The one and only," he answered smoothly as he pocketed the watch and slid his fingers into hers.

" _One_ and _only_?"

He kept his head low as lifted her hand to press a kiss into her knuckles. He chuckled lightly against her skin in response to her question. "Well. One of thirteen, perhaps." He lifted his head and gave her a wink as he kept her hand in his and curled around her to stand at her back. "And I'm obviously the only one of those thirteen men who has any form of chivalry left in him at all."

Rose let her eyes scan the length of her own arm as he pulled it to cross over her chest. "What're you doing?"

He kissed again at her hand and let it rest on her shoulder with a light pat of his hand on hers. He wasn't surprised to see that she kept it there and lifted her shoulder to press her cheek into it. He knew that she would be unable to twist her head enough to see him over her shoulder, so he pressed his nose into her temple and nudged her lightly to lift her head so that he could press his lips against her ear and assure her that he was there.

"I'm here to hold you," he whispered as he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her back gently against his chest. "Looks like I forgot one vitally important thing when I talked you into marrying me back then."

Rose shuddered and then relaxed against him. "What's _that_ , Doctor?"

"That you're human," he whispered with another nuzzle at her hair with his nose. "And that the human mind isn't exactly instinctually equipped to deal with this."

She lifted the hand on her shoulder slightly to tangle her fingertips into his curls. "So this is going to fail, and we won't be married?"

At the play of her fingertips in her hair he let out a shuddered breath that shook down the length of his body. "Rassilon if you haven't found my weakness, Rose." He tightened his hold around her waist and dropped a kiss to her shoulder. "When you do that there isn't anything in the universe I wouldn't do for you."

"How about you answer my question?"

"Why yes, of course, where are my manners?"

She chuckled and then sighed as he held her yet tighter to him. "I don't think I've never known you to actually have them."

"I may not choose to use them on a regular basis, Rose, but I do have them and am very capable of using them when the fancy strikes," he answered back with a purr. "And so, to answer your question. No, it won't fail and yes, we will be married."

"But if I'm just a human…?"

"You're so much more than that," he vowed on a low voice as he let the backs of his fingers draw down along her arm. "So, so much more than just a human."

"Then what am I?"

He exhaled hard through his mouth as he dragged his gaped and hungry lips in a line from shoulder to ear. "You're my _wife_."

Rose let out a strained sigh of his name as his mouth clamped down on the tender skin just below her ear. "God, if you haven't discovered _my_ weakness…"

He released her skin with a light pop and nudged at her ear with his nose with a snort of lament. "This could get messy if we continue on like this."

"Yes, Doctor," she sighed. "It could. Very messy."

"Then let me get you to him, Rose." He cleared his throat and shuddered one more time against her to dispel his arousal. "Now," he managed with a swallow. "Just give in to it, Rose. Look at me over there. I'm waiting for you. Just believe in me and in us." He traced his fingers along her arm. "And know that I've got you – that _we've all_ got you…"

"And that you love me, yeah?" Rose closed her eyes and melted into the circle of his arms. She thought of him, of her other three Doctors, and of the future she wanted so badly to have with him.

"And yes, Rose. That I love you."

With those words the swirling energies and the loud ruckus of her decades of memories all fighting for prime viewing position vanished. Arms no longer held her and there was no chest pressed against her back. She couldn't feel his breath puffing against her ear of the dual beats of his hearts against her back.

"Doctor," she gasped as she let her eyes flash open.

"Right here," he answered her with one of his broad smiles.

Her eyes flared in surprise at his close proximity, but they quickly narrowed into an expression of confusion as she dared take a quick look around them. "What happened?"

A voice from her side chose to answer. "Just your standard telepathic neurological feedback…."

"In English, please," Rose interrupted with a glare toward Braxiatel.

There was a light tug at her hands. "You were experiencing difficulties in opening the connection," the Doctor offered gently. He lowered his head. "I should've expected that you'd experience some degree of difficulty considering telepathy isn't exactly a typical human ability."

"So you sent in another of your incarnations to help me out a bit," she queried with a tilt of her head.

He frowned. "I did?"

Rose's brows were high and she nodded with a smile on her face. "And you chose the most suave of all of you to do it."

Braxiatel rolled his eyes. "That would imply that Thete has any kind of smooth and romantic bone in his body." He looked him up and down. "Lady killer he is not."

Rose sighed and looked back toward her Doctor. "I think he is."

He leaned down to lightly kiss her mouth. "And that's all that matters, isn't it?"

Rose giggled against his mouth and drew her arms up to circle around his neck to pepper his mouth with a series of chaste and tender kisses. "So are we done, then? Are we married? Do I get carried across the threshold of the TARDIS and made love to for the entire night?"

"Oh don't I wish," the Doctor breathed huskily against her mouth.

"And oh don't I," Braxiatel moaned. "But alas, I am destined to continue this for at least a little while longer before the pair of you can retire to your capsule for a little honeymooning."

He pressed his hands together and slid it into the gap between Rose and the Doctor's chests. With little coaxing, he managed to push them apart at least a little. "Now, the both of you. Take a look around you." He paused to let them take a moment to gasp in surprise at the unfamiliar surroundings and then continued.

"This is the beginning of your union, your _home_ if you will." He inhaled a deep breath. "This vast expanse represents the…"

"Brax," the Doctor interrupted with a smile. "Really, is this necessary?"

"What?"

"The elaborate, grandiose, pompous speech that has no doubt been written, approved, edited, and re-edited by the council for this purpose, and a speech that I can quite clearly see that you've made more times than you're willing to admit."

Braxiatel sighed a long suffering sigh. "Under the laws of Rassilon, the words are necessary to facilitate the council's approval of the union. It is an important part of the ceremony."

"But by not doing it," Rose asked as she tucked her hair behind her ear. "Does that mean that we can't achieve a full bond?"

"Well no," Braxiatel huffed. "But it is a vow most often requested by the Lady."

"Ahh," Rose breathed in a breath of discovery. "That's where the issue lies, then. I'm not a lady." She looked quickly to the Doctor. "I'm good. Are you?"

"Very good," he answered with a grin.

"Thete," Braxiatel moaned with a rub at his brows. "Once. Just _once_ can you stay with tradition? This is your _marriage_. A once in a livestime event."

"The key to that being _mine_ ," the Doctor argued. " _My_ wedding to _my_ wife. I don't want recycled words and sentiments that have been shared from pair to pair of bonding time Lords and Ladies to be the lyrics that begin my marriage." He looked to Rose, who was beaming a brilliant smile at him. "We're definitely not a typical Gallifreyan couple, are we?"

Rose shook her head. "Nope."

"So we shouldn't really have to endure a typical Gallifreyan speech about how right now we're standing inside our bond. Bland and void of memories it might be now, but will rapidly fill and expand with every shared experience we have – you and me.

"And you just watch how fast we'll fill it, Doctor." She grinned and looked over his shoulder. "And it looks like we've already begun."

The Doctor looked backward and grinned at a glimmering playback of their conversation. "Oh yes we have. Look at that." He didn't turn toward Braxiatel, but he twisted his trunk to look over his shoulder at him. "So, we're all finished then?"

"Not quite," Braxiatel answered flatly as his arms folded tightly across his chest. "There are some parts of tradition that even _you_ aren't going to sneak your way out of."

"But we're all done," The Doctor argued lightly. "The bonding is complete,"

"Not entirely," Braxiatel stated with a smile. "There is still the final matter to be dealt with." He nodded toward Rose. "The part where you have to say that which has been buried for so long."

Initially the Doctor looked quite perplexed by Braxiatel's words. Then, inside of a second, his expression switched to shocked realization.

"Oh," he moaned out along a breath.

"Yes," Braxiatel practically hissed in pleasure.

"There's a reason it was buried and hidden for so long, Brax." He sighed. "It's not who I am, who I chose to be."

Braxiatel shook his head slowly as he set his hand on the Doctor's shoulder and looked at his brother with affection rather than frustration. "Like it or not, Thete, you're every bit of what you claim you aren't." He gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Sure you've given yourself a couple of unique upgrades to the norm, and you have renounced yourself of our society more than once, but deep down inside, you are still an academy trained Time Lord born to one of the oldest chapterhouses on Gallifrey. _That_ is a reality that you'll never escape."

The Doctor merely sighed.

"Embrace who you are, Thete," Braxiatel continued. "Let your new wife embrace who you _really_ are. You never know, perhaps a day will come where your pride will have to fall and you'll state who you are and where you're from – and be damn proud of it too." He looked to Rose. "And you'll always be there to remind him of who he is, won't you?"

Rose had remained dutifully quiet throughout the exchange and that didn't change now. She kept her eyes on Braxiatel and nodded slowly.

Braxiatel took a step back and held his hand toward Rose. "Now, Thete. Tell her who you are."

The Stepped a stride toward his new wife and tenderly set his hands on her hips. He looked first into her brilliant brown/amber eyes and then back up to his brother. "If you don't mind. This is something I'd much rather do in private."

Braxiatel held his hands up and shook his head. "Oh. I don't have to be here for this bit," he answered back rather hurriedly. "I just have to encourage you to say it, I don't have to be here for it."

Rose frowned in puzzlement. "Right, the two of you have me a little freaked out here."

The Doctor kept his eyes on his brother, but stroked at Rose's waist with his thumbs. "Don't be, Rose. There's just something that I need to tell you. Something that no one else knows." He turned his head to look down at her. "Something buried such a long time ago that I'm surprised I even remember how to say it." He increased the volume of his voice for Braxiatel's benefit. "But it's something I want to do in private, Brax. So if you wouldn't mind getting out of our heads I'd greatly appreciate it."

Braxiatel gave a nod. "It'd be my pleasure to release myself from being inside _your_ head brother. You've been hanging around these humans far too much. Your brain is as irrationally wired as theirs is." He then offered a warm smile toward Rose. "My dear Rose." He stepped forward and took her hand in his, taking a moment to bring her wrist to his mouth so that he could press a polite kiss to it. "Welcome to the family. May you enjoy all the wonder and the … unusal … faces and personalities that reside within the Lungbarrow home."

Rose smiled a cheeky grin. "If you want to know _unusual,_ then you should meet _my_ family."

He offered her a bow. "I hope that one day I will." He looked to The Doctor. "Congratulations, Brother. Your Rose Tyler is _quite_ the special woman."

The Doctor took her within his arms and looked down at her with utter adoration. "That she is, Brax."

It was a short breath of a breeze that announced Braxiatel's departure from within their minds. The Doctor immediately stole that opportunity to drop his head to claim his new wife's mouth in a frantic and unbridled kiss. It quickly lengthened and deepened into a fierce display of possession and passion, the sounds of which bounced and echoed in the vast emptiness of their joined minds.

Rose heard an echo of the wet smacking sound of their kiss and pulled back abruptly to sever that connection. Through her haze of arousal she could see the image of their passionate embrace replying in a glimmering scene a little off in the distance. She had to giggle.

"Oh yes, we're filling this up quickly, aren't we?"

He dropped his forehead to hers. "Yes we are."

She licked at her lip. "So?"

"So, _what_?"

She danced a little in his hold. "Wasn't there something you needed to tell me?" she dipped her head to look into her eyes, but maintained the touch of his forehead against hers. "Something you couldn't share with your brother?"

"Oh, he knows," the Doctor whispered with a smile. "He's one of only three living souls that does know, and that includes me."

"Is it bad," she queried quietly. "What you have to tell me, that is."

The Doctor sighed. "That all depends on your definition of _bad,_ Rose."

"Tell me what it is, and I'll tell you," she whispered with encouragement. "But trust me, whatever it is, it's not going to make me love you any less than I do now, Doctor. I promise you."

That made him grin. "Oh, my dear Rose. It's nothing like that."

"When what is it?"

He pulled his forehead from hers and cupped her jaw gently with both hands. He kissed her once on the tip of the nose, on each cheek, and then once softly on the mouth. With a steady inhale he slowly moved his mouth to whisper a single word against her ear. He felt her shudder in his hold and lowered his hands from her face to take hold of her hips. With a light tug he coaxed her to step closer into him.

Rose whimpered when he repeated the word against her ear, not once, but twice more, as though to ensure that she would commit to memory and never have to ask that he tell her again.

"The word I spoke into your ear, Rose," he said softly as he moved his mouth from her ear, and brought his face to hers. "You can never repeat it, and please don't ever forget it."

"What is it, Doctor," she breathed somewhat reverently. "It's beautiful."

"It's a promise," he answered her simply. "That I honour you today on the day of our marriage, that I trust you more than I could ever hope to trust anyone else – especially myself – and that I am going to love you from here and throughout all Time."

"Doctor…"

"And with the giving of my name to you, I name you my wife," he continued. "Until our deaths do us part."

Rose hiccupped a shaking gulp. "That was… You told me your …?"

"My _name_ ," he supplied with a smile. "Yes. It was. Given to me on the evening of the day I was loomed in the house of Lungbarrow. Oh. Oh, so long ago."

Rose fell into a wide eyed and stunned silence.

"It's my gift to you, my name," he offered sheepishly. "Noone else knows it, really. Well. Noone outside of Lungbarrow, anyway, and my name's been removed from the registry, and to utter it is considered borderline felonious amongst my cousins. So it's _our_ secret, I suppose. Something for just you and me." He looked back into her face. "Yes, it's tradition for the groom to say it, to give name to his wife, but generally speaking the bride knows her groom's name…"

"Doctor…"

"But for me, well it really means that I truly believe that you and I…" his words cut off abruptly as her mouth crashed fiercely with his in a bruising collision that knocked the Doctor of his feet and sent them both tumbling onto the ground. He was stunned that rose managed to maintain their connection as he fell, and quickly snapped his arms around her to make sure that connection continued to hold – even if they were no longer tumbling about in an awkward fall.

It was a long few moments of loud and messy kissing before the doctor could find it within him to separate the two. He panted against her mouth as he found his breath again.

"Now, my Rose," he said with a swallow. "Not that this isn't lovely, but if you wish to start off our wedding _celebrations_ then don't you think it might be better that we return to reality and do this in the privacy of the TARDIS?"

"Oh," she panted as she pulled herself up onto her knees and looked around them. "It seems so real in here that I forgot we were only mind melded and not out and about in reality."

"Oh, it's real enough," he sang as he pulled himself up to a seated position. "I suppose, anyway." He looked down his shoulder at her and winked. "And very, very private. Noone, not even TARDIS can get in here."

"I see," she muttered thoughtfully.

"Yep," he breathed. "So _very_ private."

"With full sensory, you know …" She licked at her lip. "All five senses and then some, yeah?"

He chuckled. "Yeah."

"So we can, well. You know?"

He slid his gaze to her and smiled a somewhat conspiratorial grin. "What do I know, Rose?"

She crawled along the ground toward him, crawling the length of his legs to bring her chest in close to his. She licked at her lip as she looked first at his lips and then into his eyes. "I already know that a kiss can be pretty powerful when we lock lips in here."

"Yes," he whispered with his eyes locked on her mouth.

"I bet making love is something else," she said in a brazen tone.

"I imagine it would be, Rose." He half panted as she straddled his hips and tugged at the front of his shirt. "I've never personally done it like this, so I can't say for sure."

"It's now officially our honeymoon, Doctor." She lowered her mouth to his and wet his lips with the very tip of her tongue. "So let's find out, shall we?"


	34. Remember

A/N: This was supposed to be a short chapter ... it was ... something short to let me get some other stuff done.

Didn't quite turn out that way, did it?

Anyhoo ... this ends the Gallifreyan Romp. I'm dying dying dying to get back to John, and the next chapter takes us there ... yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Oh. Not incredibly up on Eight ... can only find youtube clips of him and XBMC let me down. So I'm pretty much basing his character on small snippets and based on his promo pics. If I screwed up his characterization .. I'm sorry. So sorry... so very sorry.

Oh ... smut. Let me quickly touch on that. I've been receiving requests for some smut in this. Now, I can't say I don't have my smutty ideas, and definitely have a few with this story in mind, but I'm not going to insert them in this particular tale. I want to keep this one on the more family friendly scale. I really want to stay in the current flow and just write each chapter without interrupting it for some bed time fun and games. Perhaps when this fic is done I will do a sidebar post or two with some scenes in it, but not right now.

I hope that means you'll stick with me ... :)

~~oooOOOooo~~

One thing long missing from the life of young Gallifrey Tyler – besides his father, of course – was the sound of excited children playing around him. The high pitched squeal and melodic giggling of youngsters at play and the rustle of grasses at their feet synchronised by the happy cheers and playful challenges issued between friends were sounds he can't ever recall actually being a part of.

Oh, but how he had longed for it.

Running from place to place and simply not being able to connect appropriately with children his own age didn't allow him the gift of laughter and friendship of a young friend. At the tender age of eight, he should've at least had one or two emergency rooms trips or scraped knees as a result of innocent childhood misadventures.

But he hadn't…

Not that he wanted to get hurt, mind, but it was a human rite of passage, and while he may have been a dual-hearted child of a Gallifreyan man, he was born on Earth to a Human mother. He wanted that rite of passage, dammit.

…And the more he heard it. The more he so desperately wanted it.

It was hard, therefore, to listen to the excited squeals and hollers of the children racing through the grasses that edged the majestic Cadonwood forest behind him. He fought against every instinct to spin on his heel, race in and join them. The battle was harder fought as an elated peel of childish laughter rolled along the red grasses and seemed to wind its way up his legs to hit him in the belly.

He sniffed a wet sniff and wiped clumsily at his eye as he felt a tear finally leak out of his lashes.

"Is everything okay, Gallifrey," Romana asked gently as she handed across a delicate white piece of embroidered cloth that he assumed was a handkerchief.

"Yeah," he huffed lightly. "Just…" Another light huff. "Mum and dad, you know. Finally together and happy."

"And this upsets you?"

He frowned and looked up into her curious face. "No. Why would it? This is what I've wanted since I was capable of coherent thought."

"I see," she whispered quietly. "Then why are you crying?"

He shrugged. "Because I'm happy?"

"One doesn't cry when they're happy, young Gallifrey." She took the handkerchief from him fingers and lightly dabbed at the corner of his eye. "Are you perhaps upset because you cannot be included in this part of the ceremony?"

The centre of his brow knit together tightly for a moment as he analysed her words. A crease in his eyes appeared quickly, as did a rather disgusted look. "What? No! I'm already naturally bonded to the two of them, thankyouverymuch. I certainly don't need to be a part of.." He flicked his hand toward his parents. " _That_ bond. That's just _eww_." He motioned a retch.

"I don't see what it so _eww –_ as you so eloguently put it – about it, Gallifrey. It's a beautiful and spiritual thing for them to share."

"That typically involves activities and behaviours that _I don't wanna know about_ , but that could result in me ending up with a sister." He shrugged. "Or a brother, but I reckon a sister's the first one up, if mum's timelines are accurate."

"Timelines – if read correctly - typically are quite accurate," Romana stated with a smile. "If your mother takes the past destined for the procurement of another child, of course."

"They're all pretty much leading there," he countered with a smirk. "The timing of it, however, _well_ , that's the part that's in flux right now. Could be nine months from now – could be five years." He gave another shrug. "Depends on how frisky dad gets, I suppose, or if he thinks mum should wait for my _older_ dad to come back to his Time Lord senses. I dunno."

Romana chuckled. "Having some difficulty in deciphering your father's timelines?"

"You have no idea…" He lifted his hands to flick his fingers around his head. "So much to look at up there. It's all wild and jumbly just like his hair."

To his left, Leela chuckled.

Romana maintained her neutral façade. "Is that why you're upset, then, young Gallifrey? Because you may have to share your mother with another child as a result of her union with your father?"

"Hardly," Gallifrey shot back with a snort. "That possibility couldn't come fast enough if you ask me."

"Then why the tears, young Lord. I am perplexed as to why you are so upset."

"Because he yearns to play with other children," Leela cut in with a roll in her eyes. "He wants to make himself some friends."

Romana's eyes widened and immediately shifted toward the edge of the forest, where a small group of youngsters were engaged in a child's game. "Is this true, Gallifrey?"

He didn't look at the other kids, but he heard the peels of laughter a victorious cheer as one child tagged another. "No point, is there? We're only here until mum and dad have finished then we're heading back to Earth, aren't we?"

Leela smirked a rather dangerous smile. Her voice lowered appropriately for that expression. "Not if I have anything to say about it, you won't." She fingered a little at the holster at her hip that contained her beloved knife and offered the young boy a wink. "I'm not opposed to offering a threat to his masculinity in the name of letting a child be a child and having some fun."

Gallifrey grinned widely and pointed playfully at her. "Oh, I think I like you." He then slouched and sighed dramatically. "But my dad, my _other_ dad, well. We have to go back and keep an eye on him. You know. Just in case he does something _stupid_ like channel my mum and get all _jeopardy friendly._ "

"Which, knowing your father," Leela began.

"Is more than a likely scenario," Romana finished.

"And therein lies my problem, doesn't it," Gallifrey muttered with a dramatic shrug of his shoulders. "I got a mum and dad who seem to have trouble as their stalker…."

"Oh you say that like you've never encountered any problems yourself, young Lord," Romana shot back with a growl and a flick of her long blonde hair. "You can't tell me that you're not as jeopardy friendly as the two of them put together. Why, the fact that both of them contributed to your genetic matrix, and that trouble seems to be the dominant force in your father's TNA means that you a genetically predisposed to being a magnet to trouble."

"Nah. I missed that bullet, thankyouverymuch." He sniffed and straightened himself in his stand. "I'm not any trouble at all. Never have been."

Romana gave a slight retort that Gallifrey managed to quite effectively ignore as he caught sight of a stranger confidently striding across the grasses toward them. He angled his head to one side and frowned a light grimace of focus on the man's eyes and smile.

Leela had taken note of the stranger as well, and let out a small sound of appreciation at his classic style and handsome features. "Romana. By the Gods, who is _that_? He is very handsome."

"Someone that _you_ shouldn't be admiring," Romana shot back quickly. "You are married to a Time Lord, and while you might not be so willing to dress like one, perhaps you will _act_ as one."

"I'm married," Leela repeated as the handsome stranger approached. "Not _dead_." She looked then to Romana. "And what is wrong with my manner of dressing? It is highly functional and easy to move in, unlike the constricting binds of your expensive Gallifreyan fabrics."

Gallifrey smirked as he looked Leela up and down. "I like your style, Leela. It's all dangerous Amazon Princess."

"Warrior princess of the _Sevateem_ Tribe," Leela corrected with a smile.

All smiles faltered slightly as the stranger strode by them and tenderly placed his hand atop Gallifrey's head. He said nothing as he lifted his hand again and continued on toward the bonding circle.

Gallifrey gasped a small breath. "Dad?"

Leela's expression darkened as the stranger moved in behind Rose and pulled her knife. "Fear not, Gallifrey, I'll protect your parents from this… From this strange man who interrupts their wedding…"

Gallifrey put his hand over her wrist. "No. It's okay, Leela," he peeped. "That's… I think that's dad. Well. Another version of him anyway."

Romana watched warily as the man moved In behind Rose and tenderly slid his arms around Rose's waist. His eyes closed as he slowly drew her into his chest to hold her tightly against his chest. He exhaled a long breath as his posture dropped so that he could lay his cheek against her shoulder.

Romana's concern shifted slightly. "Yes. I believe he's the Doctor alright."

"How so," Leela asked with her suspicious glare locked on the strange man.

"Because only one man would have arrogance enough to do that." She let out a long breath and shook her head. "What have you done, Doctor, to end up here out of your time?"

Gallifrey leaned a little toward Romana. "I thought you couldn't do that?"

"You can't," she answered back simply. "It's impossible."

Gallifrey shrugged. "Guess not, then, yeah?" He grinned and tipped from side to side in a proud little shoulder dance. "My Dad. He eats impossible for lunch, you know that. He's just _that_ awesome." He looked to Romana with a cheeky glint in his eye. "And seeing that you have already touched on the whole genetic matrix and the transference of dominant genetic markers, Romana. Let me point out that my Dad's dominant feature is his absolute _brilliance_. This means that I, too, am genetically predisposed to being brilliant." His toothy little grin widened. "Like father like son. You get that, yeah? They say that here on Gallifrey…" He yipped as Romana flicked her fingernail against the very tip of the shell of his ear. " _What_? What was _that_ for?"

"Fifty-one percent," she answered simply with a smile and a fold of her arms across her chest.

Gallifrey held at his ear and looked up at her through a wince. "What's that mean? What's Fifty-one percent got to go with anything? You looking at being a rapper or something and that's your name?"

"Your _brilliant_ father only just graduated the academy with a fifty one percent test score – fifty-one! - and that was _after_ his third attempt." She slid a sly-fox look down at him over her shoulder. "I, on the other hand, finished with honours. Now, that makes me smarter than your dad, and if we work on your theory that your intelligence was passed to you by your father, then that makes me smarter than you, now, doesn't it?"

Gallifrey's face fell into an expression of a child on the border of a brooding tantrum. "He did not pass by a only a single percent."

"I can get you the test scores if you like," she teased.

"Romana, really" the newest Doctor sang with a chuckle in his voice as he released his hold on Rose and strode toward the small grouping. "Are you truly seeking dominance over a youngster in such a manner?"

"Sometimes," she breezed back on a sigh. "This precocious youngster needs to be brought down a level or two in _such a manner_."

"You're never going to let me forget that your time at the Academy was so much more fruitful than mine, are you?"

She smiled widely. "Not for an instant."

"You seem to have forgotten our many conversations where I made it quite clear to you that my low scores at the academy were a choice rather than an honest representation of my ability," he defended lightly.

"Excuses," she sighed.

His lazy grin widened and a sparkle seemed to ignite in his eye. "Oh, Romana. I have missed you."

She offered him the slightest of bows – more a tip o her head than anything. "I haven't yet had the circumstance to miss you, Doctor." She smiled. "But I imagine I must at least a little in your current time. You are number…?"

"Eight," he answered with a dramatic dip at his waist. He then straightened and waggled his brows slightly. "So, what do you think?"

"What do I think of _what_?" She answered suspiciously.

"The new me," he answered. He opened his arms and then turned in place a full rotation. "I think I like it."

"Yes," she replied with a roll of her eyes. "You do have a rather lovely body this time around." Her smile faltered. "What I mean to say is. That. Now, that isn't to say that I've taken any more than a simple cursory glance of your current form, which I undertook only for identification and the safety of my young companion here."

The Doctor couldn't help but beam a wide smile as he looked to his son. "It took me centuries to do it, my boy, but I think I may have finally been able to bluster our unflappable Romanadvoratreludar." He looked back to Romana. "Imagine that. My wedding _and_ a victory. How could a Time Lord want for more?"

Leela's voice was quiet as she spoke his name in an attempt to insert herself into the conversation. "Hello Doctor. It's been a while."

The Doctor quickly lifted a hand and cupped her cheek gently with it. "Leela. My lovely Leela. It's always a pleasure to see you again." He let out a breath and tipped his head in a tilt of pure adoration. "If I've never said it before, then forgive me and let me say it now. I am so proud of you. So very proud of who you become."

She clutched his wrist in her hands and nestled into his palm for a short moment. "I have missed you, Doctor. But I am happy. Happy here on Gallifrey."

"I know you are," he breathed gently. His gentle look then became more thrilled. "And speaking of … Gallifrey!" He turned on his hell and skipped a step to stand before the young boy. He cupped his hands around his head and dropped a loud kiss atop his head. "Oh, my boy."

Gallifrey squirmed a little. "Dad. Please."

"Oh how you've shrunk," the Doctor continued with a clap of his hands. "And you've unaged so much. Why the last time I saw you…" He folded his arms across his chest and rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. "Well. The last time I saw you, you were about this big." He held his hand high in the air. "With floppy hair, a penchant for bowties, your own TARDIS and a woman travelling about all of time and space claiming that you were her husband."

Gallifrey's eyes widened at that. "I get _married_? To a _girl_?"

"That is the usual partnership," he responded. "Time Lord meets Lady, they fall in love, they marry." His brows rose in unison. "Or Lord meets Lord and the same _could_ happen. Never anything wrong with that – not these days anyway." He shrugged. "Not that it matters, really. And as for the actual legitimacy of the marriage, that's still in question. You admit it when it suits you, deny it when it doesn't. River certainly doesn't deny it at any rate."

"And perhaps that where you should stop telling your son about his future," Romana warned with a frown. "Let him discover his wife on his own."

"Again," the Doctor stated with a point of his finger upward. "I am still verifying that information at the request of my beloved wife. It could be all strictly an unrequited infatuation that Gallifrey admits to here and there when she's being particularly psychotic and he wants to make her happy so the universe isn't destroyed." He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back onto his heels. "Not really out of the realm of possibility. It has happened before."

"Nice to see that your arrogance is still nicely in place in this incarnation," Romana pointed out with a smile. "A constant across them all I'd suggest."

"Absolutely-positively," he chuckled in response.

"So why are you here," Romana cut without further preamble. "And _how_ are you here?"

"Both are very good questions," he answered immediately.

Romana waited for him to continue and maybe answer the questions. When he said nothing further, she prodded him by clearing her throat against her fist.

"Coming down with a cold, perhaps, Romana," he queried with concern. "Perhaps you should see a Doctor? And I'm not talking about me when I suggest that. Although I am rather well versed on the biology of the Gallifreyan people and their virology, I'd honestly prefer that you sought the opinion of an actual qualified Gallifreyan Medical specialist when it comes to your health and preventative measures."

"And the gob does runneth over," Braxiatel muttered dryly with as he wiped his hands together and then on his robe. "In this incarnation and the next. Hello Thete, what temporal disaster did you manage to create in order to break the Kasterborean Time Lock?"

The Doctor spun on his heel and faced his brother with a wide grin. "I think the temporal disaster may be that I got married at all," he answered with amused flippancy. "Don't you think?"

"It will be if your wife hears you say that," he countered. He then looked up to Romana. "Now, if you will be a gentleman Time Lord and answer Romana's question, we can send you on your way and I can send your fourth self along on his."

The Doctor's expression fell to a light frown. "Not that I'm claiming to be any form of gentleman, Brax, but I _did_ answer her question."

"No you didn't," Romana cut in quickly.

"Indeed I did," he defended. "I let you know that I found both to be quite good questions."

"That isn't answering my question."

The Doctor nodded. "It is when I don't know the answers myself."

Romana looked concerned. "Is your TARDIS navigation malfunctioning, Doctor?"

He chuckled. "not that it isn't a constant problem with my beautiful ship, but no. I very deliberately set these specific coordinates so that I would land on this date at this time."

"But why," Braxiatel queried impatiently.

"I don't know," The Doctor responded.

"How can you not know?"

"I'm not sure," he answered with a disgusted look. "And you have no idea just how unusual that is for me to say. It's not often that I don't know something. So rare, even, that I'm surprised I know how to pronounce the sentence properly." His jaw opened and rolled as though he was silently running the words through his mouth to try them on for size.

"How can you tell me that you don't know why you deliberately attempted to break the Kasterborean Time Lock – a felony on Gallifrey, mind – to travel back along your own time line – also a felony - and walk in on your own wedding," Braxiatel snapped angrily. "You are a lot of things, Thete, batshit crazy is definitely one of them, and you have embarked upon some reckless and ridiculous endeavours. But you have never been so deliberately reckless as to make yourself a criminal and then flaunt it by showing your face where it absolutely should _not_ be seen."

The Doctor took a moment to glare at his brother with a steeled gave of fury. As quickly as that fury has flared, however, it disappeared into confusion. The Doctor grunted as he fisted and pulled as his hair and began to walk in a tight circle in front of Braxiatel. "I don't know. Don't know. Don't know," he growled. "It's this regeneration. Something went wrong. Nothing's right. I can't remember…" He punched both hands against his head once, twice, three times. "It's there, the memories are in there, but I can't get at them."

"You okay, Dad," Gallifrey asked cautiously. "Can I help, maybe?"

"Wish you could, Son," he answered on a light huff. "I know that the answer's there. It's like when you have the answer, you _know it_ , you absolutely know it. It's on the tip of your tongue…" He paused and poked out his tongue, crossing his eyes in an attempt to look at its very tip. He slumped lightly, but kept his tongue poking out into the Gallifrey evening as he dug into the waist pocket of his vest and pulled out the fob watch from within. He popped it open and twisted and turned it to look for the shiniest surface and found it on the back of the watch. A quick rub against his sleeve, and one narrowed eye, and the Doctor checked out his tongue in the reflection from the watch.

Finally, he snapped back in his tongue, sighed hard, and shook his head. "Nope. That didn't help."

"Unless you're intending on making a case for insanity," Braxiatel said with a grunt. He folded his arms across his chest and analysed his brother's worried expression. After a moment he relaxed a little. "You've only recently regenerated?"

"A couple of days," he answered softly. He rolled his neck. "Still getting out the kinks."

"What happened?"

"Shot," he answered indignantly. "And then operated on by a surgeon who was not in any way equipped to offer medical intervention to a Gallifreyan."

"On Earth, I take it."

The Doctor looked away and nodded slowly. "I had to get off Gallifrey. Bad visit. I had to go somewhere that felt more like home." He sighed. "I was looking for my Tenth self to see if he would let me spend some time with Rose and Gal, and the nav-com when down." He winced and fisted the air beside his hip. "I just wanted to see her. I needed her and my son. I wanted _my_ family."

"What happened, Thete? What happened to put you in that place."

The Doctor snorted. "Lungbarrow, Arkhew, Quences, Satthralope, the whole bloody lot of them." He flicked a hand at him. "Done with the lot of them."

"Why would you return there, Thete," Braxiatel asked with a confused frown. "Visits to that place never end well."

"Don't I know it?" He scratched at his head with one hand in annoyance. "Bloody TARDIS flew me in there, didn't she?" He sighed hard. "And anyway. So nav com failure, ended up in some alley way on Earth, got hit by gun fire, operated on by a non-Gallifreyan surgeon, die…" He put his hand on his son's shoulder when he heard Gallirey's horrified gasp. "Regenerated," he enunciated slowly for his child's benefit. "Woke up on a slab in the city morgue." His eyes shifted back to Braxiatel. "Somewhere along that wonderful list of issues that added up to a very bad day for the Doctor, the regeneration switch was activated, and there was a glitch."

"A _glitch_?"

"For lack of a better term."

"Or you're simply too lazy to think of one."

"I've just outlined to you the last few days of the ending and beginning of regenerations, Brax. Cut me some slack."

A tiny voice shuddered into the conversation so quietly that it was barely heard. "You. You were alone, Dad? You had no one there when you regenerated?"

The Doctor looked to his child and shook his head slowly. "No, Gal. I did this one on my own."

Gallifrey's bottom lip suddenly protruded its entire possible length at that news. With a quiver in his chin he launched forward and threw his arms around his father's waist. "That's not right. Not right at all." He looked up with huge brown eyes filled with tears. "Give me the coords, dad. I'll get a TARDIS and I'll make her take me there so you aren't alone. I will. You just watch me." He sniffed. "And mum'll come too. We'll both take you through it."

The Doctor dropped his hand to stroke at Gallifrey's little head. "It's over now. I'm okay."

"Except you're having memory issues," Braxiatel muttered. "Which means you are very far away from okay."

"I'll be fine in a day or two," he huffed in response. He then paused and a sly smile crept along his mouth. He clicked open his fob and had a look at the time. "Or maybe in a few seconds…"

"What do you…?" Braxiatel caught the sound of twin gasps from the bonding couple. It was a sound indicting that they'd released their connection and were now back to reality. "Oh. Yes. Indeed."

The Doctor held out his arms expectantly as Rose turned inside of his Fourth self's arms and noticed him standing beside Gallifrey. His face wore the defeated expression of a young boy hurt and miserable in the hope that Rose would come to him.

With urging from her new husband, Rose did just that. Initially she looked somewhat confused to be guided toward another man, but it quickly dissipated when she saw the state of him. She pulled him to her with a tender call of his name.

"Rose," he panted lightly as his look softened to a gesture of analysis as he let his eyes scan every inch of her face as though committing it to memory. "I've missed you."

Rose dragged her thumb down along his lips and then moved in to press her mouth tenderly to his in what she had intended to be a small, chaste, and loving kiss.

The Doctor, however, had other designs on that kiss. Immediately his arms snapped around her waist and his head angled deeply to increase the depth of the kiss with penetration as deep as he could possibly muster. He kissed her with a slow and languid roll of his jaw and a rise and fall in his head. He wanted depth in that connection, and she let him have every single additional millimetre that he wanted.

When they finally separated, the Doctor held her a fraction tighter and pressed his forehead against hers. His deepened breath panted lightly against her lips.

"This is torturing him, you know that, yeah?" His eyes flicked over her shoulder at the Doctor standing behind him. "It's _his_ wedding day, and I'm the one kissing his bride…"

Rose smacked at his shoulder and pushed her chest off him. "It doesn't matter _which_ incarnation you're in, you have to be a right little shit, don't you?"

"A right little shit who loves you very, very much, Rose."

She tilted her head at him and watched a moment as she held at her hair to stop it whipping against her face in the slowly rising evening winds. "Are you okay, Doctor?"

"I am now," he answered with a smile.

"What's wrong," she pressed with her very best _concerned mum_ voice. "You don't look like yourself."

"That's because I regenerated." He smiled and twirled in place a little. "Like the new me?"

"I like the all of you," Rose commented quickly. "You're all handsome."

He snorted. "Oh, wait until you meet two and six and seven – although seven wasn't too bad, just a touch incarnation in general."

She touched at his face and coaxed him to look at her. "Doctor. Tell me. You okay?"

"Yeah," he breathed longingly. He smiled at her and once again traced her face with his eyes. He lingered a moment on her delicious mouth, then on the tip of her nose, the apples of her cheeks, and then her perfectly shaped eyes that constantly stroked his dreams and fantasy. With a sigh he let his eyes shift up to the golden band stretched across her forehead and the careful etchings made by each of his incarnations with a single word message from them to her. He was only able to decipher those words carved into the precious metal by himself and his former incarnations, and so he read each word in order and let their meanings remind him of every one of his encounters with her as he moved from incarnation to incarnation.

His eyes reached the last of the circular texts and he locked on tight.

" _Remember_ "

Remember. Well. Yes. Very appropriate in this incarnation with his inability to remember anything _except_ Rose and Gallifrey, and how very much they meant to him. He would never forget, and neither would she … his brilliant girl who would soon return to Earth to be reunited with his Tenth…

He gasped.

 _REMEMBER_.

Yes. Oh. Yes. That's right! That's why he had to come here! It wasn't just so that he could help Rose get through their ceremony in one piece, or that he could kiss her with all the desperation he'd ever felt – oh no, those were just the absolute silver lining of this travel cloud.

He was here for a reason, and he was going to follow it through.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor looked to his new wife with manic eyes and an equally manic grin. "My Rose Tyler," he sang proudly. "You _always_ know just what to say, don't you?"

"But I didn't say anything."

He held her head in his hands and have her a rough kiss on the mouth. He released her with a loud _mwaaah_ sound and pointed to his fourth self. "Here," he said as he circled a spot under his ear. "Complete weak spot for her. Go for the jugular, Doctor, and she's going to be all yours. All the time and _every_ time."

Rose gasped and reddened immediately. "Doctor!"

He winked and scruffed at Gallifrey's head. "Love you, Gal. Be good. Be careful around women named River." He snatched Leela's hand tightly in his. "My apologies to you all. But I must run. Things to do, plans to make, parties to plan and hearts to break – or _something_ like that, anyway." He looked at Andred and held up Leela's hand. "I need to borrow your wife a moment. Do be a good sport, old chum, and don't follow." He blew a kiss to Rose and threw a wink and a thumbs up to Gallifrey, and then jogged away in a manner that was almost a skip and a hop."

Rose looked utterly confused as her new husband stepped up beside her and slid his arm around her waist. "Doctor, was that any one of the incarnations you recognise of yourself?"

"No," he answered quietly. "Must be a later incarnation."

"Then you can't tell me what that was all about then?"

"Rose," he said with a sigh and a chuckle. "I have no idea."


	35. A Painful Memory

A/N: okaaaaaaaaaaay.

1\. I know that the UK doesn't have frats and sororities ... But the TARDIS doesn't ... so that's my excuse. And it just kind've fit to me, ya know? I'm not North American (let's ignore that I currently reside in Canada, shall we?), and didn't do the university thing here, so I don't even have a clue as to how they work.  
2\. What the hell happened here? I have no idea. I started writing something and it got away on me... soooo... sorry. (I think I know ... it's because I'm a little bit fearful of what's coming and my keyboard is stalling me with other ideas ... bastard)  
3\. Apparently when you're at work you have to work, so this ends rather abruptly here because I have a tonne of stuff to get through ... Additionally, if I carry it on from here it'll end up being a 6K word chapter. Let's break that up shall we?  
4\. If you've never listened to Jeff Wayne's the War of the Worlds (the version with Richard Burton as narrator) please do. It's so incredibly wonderful... I've been listening to this since I was a kid and I know it word for word ... but it still excites me and then breaks my heart every single time I listen to it...  
5\. I really hope you like this bit...

~~oooOOOooo~~

John Smith lay deep inside the dip of his pillows with both arms behind his head as he stared at the ceiling above his bed. Still in his pyjamas and dressing robe at two in the afternoon, he could hardly care that he had yet to dress and leave his quarters for the day. His lunch tray sat untouched on the table, the sandwiches no doubt turning hard and stale by the second. He hadn't taken the time to investigate just what Martha had brought him for lunch – and admittedly he was napping when she silently brought it in – but if his sense of smell was anything to go by it was a ham sandwich with mustard and cheese, quite possibly garnished with a sliced pickle or a pickled onion. The Tea was the typical black leaf blend, bland, not steeped in water anywhere near hot enough to enhance its flavour and make it taste more like tea and less like hot water with milk and sugar in it.

He let out a huff at the thought. Now _Rose Tyler_ knew how to make a good cup of tea. Piping hot and full of intense flavour. Oh, she could take a leaf of the most boring quality and make it absolutely brilliant. She treated tea preparation like it was an art form – and wasn't she one of the masters?

John Smith let out a moan as he scraped his hands heavily down his face and kicked off the comforter that had shifted down to his legs.

Why was he thinking such impossible things? Rose Tyler had never prepared him a cup of tea, how could he possibly assume that she'd be anywhere near that good at it?

He held his hands over his face and moaned again. Oh, maybe Joan had mentioned it to him during one of their many conversations as they walked the school grounds in the evening. Joan liked a decent cup of tea, perhaps Rose had worked her magic on the stale Farrington leaf and the matron had indulged in a cup or two.

 _Rose Tyler_.

Why had that woman managed to rattle him so much? He'd barely met her three times since she came to Farrington with her son in tow, yet he couldn't stop thinking about her. She was a complete stranger to him, yet so _impossibly_ familiar that he felt as though they'd known each other for a lifetime….

…and that he'd loved her for that long.

He moaned again when he closed his eyes and saw her looking back at him with a cheeky and flirtatious smile that held just a hint of a plump pink tongue in its teeth. It was an image so horrifically and immediately arousing that he found himself writhing just slightly on his back and panting a pair of quick breaths to quell it.

Because he couldn't think of her that way. Not anymore. According to Martha, Rose Tyler was now officially Mrs. Doctor Smith. Which made her completely untouchable.

…And what about Gallifrey? Did he have to give up that wonderful child as well? Because as much as Rose denied it, he _knew_ that child was his. No. Not just knew it; he _felt_ it. He felt a connection with that boy so deep inside his soul that there was nothing, no power in the universe that would make him believe otherwise.

He _gave_ that boy his name; that he was sure of more than anything else. More than even his own presence here, now, John Smith – History teacher at Farrington.

But why Gallifrey? Why choose a name like that? What meaning did it have to him?

Gallifrey. Gallifrey. Gallifrey.

It was a good, powerful, and dignified name for sure; but …? He rolled the word around his tongue a few times and moaned to himself. Of course. That's where he knew it from. It's the name of the small township he grew up in as a child before heading to London to go to university.

He huffed as he buried his head deeper into the pillow, which awkwardly dropped his chin into his chest and made his breathing somewhat loud and wheezy, and tried to think back to his days at University to pinpoint the moment he met Rose and fathered her child.

He _knew_ that he had played the field a little when he arrived in London. He _knew_ that freedom from the shackles of a small town had given him a sudden a short-lived wild ride of exploration, alcohol, and debauchery. Why, that was the standard behaviour from the students once the bell had tolled to end a day of study. He had hazy memories of joining a fraternity – Theta Sigma – and indulging in the many _activities_ shared between his fraternity and its associated sorority. _That's_ where he met her! It had to be. Rose must've been a sister of the sorority lorded over by his frat brothers.

His laboured breathing deepened as he desperately tried to recall something – _anything_ – from his days at the University. He clenched his eyes shut and practically found himself snoring as he dug yet deeper into the pillow in an effort to find anything in his memory that wasn't just a _feeling_ about what happened.

"Show me something," he growled through a frustrated curl in his lip. "Show me Rose Tyler and what we shared together."

When nothing came, he clenched his fists and pounded a single strike of both hands against the mattress of his bed. "Something! Anything!" He inhaled deeply with a wheeze. "I can _feel_ her! I can feel my heartbreak over her … for God's sake show me _something_ to tell me what happened between us."

He felt the corner of his eye bubble with a tear as he struggled to remember. He felt stuffiness in his nose from his upset and let his lips part slightly to breathe through his mouth. His open mouth wheezed and whined his inhales and exhales as his breaths struggled to pass through his constricting throat.

The wheeze and whine was practically musical and overtook his mind as painful pinpricks of bright light dotted a muted donut image that stained the darkness of his tightly clenched eyes. Each of those bright little pinpricks suddenly expanded and merged into a soul-shattering image of a sun-drenched land of brilliant reds and oranges overlooked by proud citadel towers encased in a crystal sphere.

His breath caught as he found himself compelled to run toward the dome in the distance. He looked down to his feet, dressed in dusted and torn leather boots wrapped over equally dusted and torn loose trousers, and willed himself to run.

"I can't stay here," he said to his feet. "I can't die here. If I die, I rewrite time and she's gone. I'll lose them both." He looked back up. "But I can't lose all this. My home. I can't. _"_

He twisted his head to the side. He tried not to look at the abandoned and dilapidated barn that he'd run from only moments ago. He didn't want to look. Inside it sat the weapon he'd stolen from the Omega Arsenal. Inside that old building was a weapon capable of destroying not just Gallifrey, but the entire constellation of Kasterborous if he so decided it should do so.

He'd intended to use it to end the war, to end the battle between two species that had already destroyed planets in its wake and looked ready to take the universe itself if it continued.

…But he couldn't. He couldn't do it. There was still hope, there had to be. He just had to keep fighting.

He felt the grit of dirt on his face as he wiped at his watering eyes and then grimaced as he forced his legs to run toward the citadel. "I have to get to the TARDIS. I have to keep pushing on."

His machine's whining scream of warning, and of her desperation for him to safely reach her, echoed off the rocky dunes and hills surrounding them both. "I'm coming, old girl," he hollered in a croaking and weary voice. "Stop complaining."

His rapid approach halted with a skid of his feet in the loose dirt of the disused trail as Arcadia's crystal dome drew closer with each stride. His hearts felt as though they'd stopped inside his chest as he witnessed the sudden and horrific shattering of the Arcadia's mighty protective dome and the victorious metallic cry of a thousand Dalek warriors ordering extermination of the citadel and all of her people.

It was with the calm of a defeated man that he whispered to himself that Arcadia had fallen. Gallifrey's last defence, her last beacon of hope to the people of his planet, was gone.

…Gallifrey now belonged to the Daleks.

"No." He muttered cruelly to himself. "I can't let that happen." His eyes flicked to his blue machine. "We can't give the gateway to the time vortex to the Daleks." He inhaled a shaking breath through his mouth. "I have to destroy Gallifrey. I've got no choice."

The TARDIS whined sadly in agreement.

He swallowed a lump and twisted to stand sideways toward the abandoned building. His breath shook and his eyes flooded with tears as he slowly drew his arm upward with his Sonic Screwdriver in his hand. His thumb hovered over the activation switch to the sonic and his hand shook with terrified apprehension. "I'll be the only one left," he whispered in a shattered breath. "The last of my kind." He sniffed. "It's my penance for doing this to my people."

He coughed with a painful sob. "I can't…"

A whisper kissed against his ear as an arm slid around his waist and a supportive hand glided along his arm to help steady his aim with the Sonic. "It's okay, Doctor. I'm here. I've got you."

He felt her press her chest against his back and clutched desperately at the arm she held across his belly. "Rose…"

Her lips pressed against his shoulder followed by her cheek as she steadied his extended arm with her hand. "I'm here."

"You always knew this was going to happen, didn't you?"

She nodded against his shoulder but said nothing.

"You knew I destroyed my people, that I killed them all."

She held him tighter. "You saved the universe, Doctor."

He inhaled deeply though an open mouth, and although he still held up his arm with his sonic at the aim, he dropped his head. "My planet and my people are the collateral damage?"

"There's been so much collateral damage because of this war, Doctor," she answered him sadly. "It has to end. The Time War has to end before the entire universe is destroyed along with it."

"Please," he whimpered in a tiny and desperate voice. "Please talk me out of it, Rose. Please don't make me do it."

"The decision's yours, Doctor," she whispered against his ear. She slid her body around him, curling around him to stand chest against chest with him. Her arms curled around his waist and she looked up into his sad and weary eyes. "I can't make your decision for you. I can only hold your hand and support the choice you decide to make."

He nodded slowly. "Will you still love me, Rose? Can you love a man who destroyed his people – who let his planet and his people burn?"

She slid her hands up to his face and cupped tenderly at his dusty jaw. "I fell in love with the man who ended the Time War," she assured him. "And I will always love him – no matter what you decide to do today."

He sniffed and a tear tracked down his cheek. "If I let Gallifrey survive today, then you and I will never…"

She cut him off by rolling up onto her toes and slamming her mouth bruisingly against his. Her kiss was hard, fast, and desperate … and far too short. He locked one arm tightly around her hips and hauled her up against him in search of another one of those searing kisses. She evaded his mouth a moment and pressed her finger against his lips.

" _Whatever_ you decide, Doctor. Whether or not it will change your own personal future and our history, I will always. _Always_. Love you." She swallowed and heavily dragged her finger along his lip. "Powel Estate. London. March. 2005. No matter your decision here now, you still have the power for us to meet and start a different journey with Gallifrey still in the skies."

"Not if the entire universe is at stake. If I don't destroy Gallifrey, there won't be a universe left for us."

She managed to put on a smile for him. "Then we'll just have to find ourselves a parallel one, won't we?"

He didn't laugh. "Tell me that you love me, Rose."

"I love you, Doctor."

He dipped his head. "Kiss me."

"Doctor?"

"Please. I need you to kiss me, Rose," he begged. "Give me some light in this darkness."

Again she rolled up onto her toes to press her mouth against his, this time with a passionate embrace that was far less hurried and desperate. She held her press unmovingly against his mouth for a moment as she waited for him to open to her. After a few moments the Doctor hadn't truly reciprocated the kiss he'd asked for, and as she let out a breath of understanding and slight disappointment, the Doctor's arm suddenly flexed across her back and dragged her tightly up against him. He growled as he opened himself fully to her tipped his head almost a full ninety-degree drop to be able to get in as close and as deep inside her as possible.

His decision made, the Doctor locked his arm yet tighter around her waist and depressed the button of his Sonic. As the ground below their feet rumbled, he dropped his arm to circle it around her waist beside his other one. He dipped his knees to drop the hold of his hands below the rise in her ass and then straightened up to lift her off the ground.

Rose whimpered a desperate and wanton sound into his mouth as she curled her legs around her hips and tried to intensify the kiss. Her desperation seemed to increase as he walked her back to where the TARDIS waited for them on the sands of Gallifrey. She raked her fingernails through his fauxhawk, which made him take his mouth from hers, tilt his head backward, and groan up into the Gallifreyan sky like a wolf howling to the moon.

She sighed his name as she dropped her mouth onto his neck and sucked deeply.

His head fell forward and he nudged at her cheek with his to coax her mouth back toward his. "We don't have the time to do what I want to do," he whispered, peppering her swollen lips with the breath of eleven syllables of disappointment.

"A Time Lord out of time," she sighed. She looked at the ground and then back up to him. "How long until it happens?"

"Only moments," he answered solemnly. "You should get back."

She bit at her lip and nodded.

"Will I ever forgive myself for this?"

She shook her head as a tear ran down her cheek. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he pleaded softly as he set her feet on the ground in front of her TARDIS doors. "Don't _ever_ be sorry. Not for anything."

She drew her fingertip down along his face. "Never."

"Tell Gallifrey I love him," he asked with a smile and a stroke of his dirty thumb across her cheek. "And that I'll see you both soon."

"Gal says he loves you," Rose said with a smile. "He told me to tell you that before I left. No matter what, Dad – he said – You're always my hero."

His face fell. "Even today?"

"Today more than any other," she assured him with a final small kiss against the side of his mouth. "Now, my Doctor. Go into your TARDIS, regenerate, and come find me," she ordered softly. "And let me heal you – like I'm supposed to do."

He nodded and pressed his lips to her cheek. "Powel Estate. London. March. 2005?"

"Hendricks, actually," she corrected softly. "Nestine Consciousness, basement, possessed mannequins and one word…"

"What word?"

She stepped backward into the TARDIS and held onto the doors. "You'll work it out," she offered him with a wink. "Just like you always do." She motioned to close the door, but stopped and opened them again. "And just. Just so you know. Between now and, well, _then_ …" She bit at her cheek and looked up at him with a touch of her tongue in her cheek. "If, in your next body, you need some _company…_ " Her smile stretched. "I'm only a hypercube away."

He offered her a weak, but grateful, smile. "I'll see you in ten minutes."

She ran out of the TARDIS and straight into his arms again. Her mouth was against his and her arms locked around him tight at the instant she was upon him. He gratefully took her in, securing her fiercely in his arms and returning her kiss with blinding intensity.

"Mourn them," she suggested softly as she dragged her mouth from his. "But don't let the memory of this destroy you."

"How can I make you that promise?"

"Because I promise _you_ , that we make it right," she vowed. "You, me, Gal. Together it's right, yeah?"

"I love you," he vowed inside a passionate growl as he claimed her mouth with a fast and hard kiss. His release of her was just as fast and hard. "No go," he demanded as the ground began to tear up beneath them. "Gallifrey's about to go."

Rose nodded frantically and spun on her heel to rush in a curl around the TARDIS doors. Almost as soon as the doors closed, the old machine pitched a whine and wheeze and disappeared before his eyes. His own machine called to him and the Doctor spun to run toward his own capsule. Her doors banged on their hinges as he approached and then flung open to let him fall in through the doors. He was face-first in the grating with his legs hanging out of the TARDIS doors, but the mighty ship took off anyway. He felt the dip in his stomace and the press of his body against the floor of the console room as she accelerated of the surface of the planet and shot up into the space above Gallifrey.

"Wait!" He scrambled to his knees . "Don't leave yet. Let me see." He panted as he crawled to the open door of the TARDIS and leaned heavily against the door. The ship jolted to a halt, which toppled the Doctor to his ass. He held onto the doorframe like a child clinging to the stairwell railing watching over a parental argument. "I have to make sure."

Below him, the ancient planet began to split and tear itself apart. His mind screamed with the terrified cries of every person his planet held. He clutched tightly at his head and let out an anguished cry of his own as Gallifrey finally succumbed to the mighty power of the weapon he'd chosen to use against his home…

He'd never see the twin suns rising over the mountains and setting the forest ablaze with the magnificent play of sunlight against their silver leaves. He'd never taste the waters of the Cadonflood River and verbally spar with this likes of Braxiatel, Romana, Borusa, Andred or Leela ever again…

Time had lost its guardians. He was all alone.

"By Rassilon," he moaned as he fell helplessly against the door of the TARDIS and began to weep. "What have I done?"


	36. Journal of Impossible Things

A/N: ***EDITED***

Couple of things. First up ... warning. No, not smut ... not really ... there is a slightly non-con bit of play in here. Not an actual sexual act - hardly anywhere near it. But there is persistence and a definite "No"...

The destruction of Gallifrey and the 50th Special. To answer the question of am I ignoring it?  
No. And. Yes. Let me explain:  
There are two timelines to deal with here in terms of the Doctors: War, 9 and 10. As cited at the end of the special when the three lads are together talking about the painting, the timelines aren't in synch and so the three of them WILL NOT REMEMBER that Gallifrey was saved. As far as they are concerned it happened. Gallifrey was destroyed. Burned at the hands of the Doctor. Doesn't matter that it was actually saved ... the fact remains that the three of them wholly believe that Gallifrey was destroyed - they watched it happen. They don't know otherwise until Eleven does his thing with his earlier selves.  
That said ... I ran with it's destruction ... I made sure that he didn't actually press any button and was off planet when it happened ... so the 50th is still totally able to take place and not screw with anything.  
Make sense? Hope so ... I've been trying to write all day while being distracted by the worst movies ever made but I had to sit with my little lad and watch it with him because mums do stuff like that. In other words .. brain be mush right now.  
Seriously, though. I apologise if I upset a few of you because it looked like I flipped the bird at Moffatt and the 50th anniversary ep... I might not like Moffatt at all, but I did love that episode. It's one of my favourites...  
Enjoy...

~~oooOOOooo~~

John Smith's eyes opened suddenly, blearily, and he gasped a choking sob. He rolled on his bed, clutched hard at his pillow with both hands and buried his face into it. He curled up his legs and hugged hard at his comforter and allowed the remains of his dream to choke out through his mouth and nose with wracking sobs of complete and utter heartbreak.

Just _what_ was that? What kind of torturous stories was his mind playing in his dreams – and with such brutally vivid imagery? What was wrong with him to have a dream like _that_?

Oh, but he had dreams of terror and adventure before. So many dreams of monsters and travel, of love and of sorrow. None, though. None were as heartbreakingly painful as that had been.

He inhaled deeply enough through an open mouth that he sucked in a mouthful of his pillow. He immediately coughed and lifted his chest up off the bed by straightening both arms underneath him, but he couldn't lift his head. He let it hang painfully down at his chest and panted out the last of his agony.

Rose. She was the light in that man's darkness. The man that he was when he dreamed of adventure through time and space. She was his strength and his longing. She was the one that was there when he needed hope the most…

His head snapped up and his eyes locked onto a deep scratch on his wooden headboard. His brows knitted tightly together in the very centre of his forehead and he considered his previous dreams and the tales that they told.

Most of his dreams were nonsensical and jumbled, with nothing so concrete as to tell a full story of the adventure. He saw bits and bobs of strange scenes and unnamed faces, of machines and stars and planets and suns.

He quickly flicked his head to the table, and to the leather bound book nesting in between a pile of papers that needed grading and a trio of history books that he'd pulled from the library at the request of one of his students.

"I have to write this down," he huffed quickly to himself. "I have to make sense of this madness."

He leapt rather than slid off his bed, and ignored his robe that hung messily off the corner of his mattress. John did make an effort to scruff out the knotted and flattened back of his head with a hearty scratch with the fingernails of both hands as he padded with bare feet across the wooden floor toward the table, but he didn't bother to straighten the skewed seat of his pyjama pants – at least not until he tried to sit down and had his groin painfully pinched by the pant's errant seam. He grunted as he stood up and used one hand to straighten his pyjama bottoms and the other to snatch out his journal from its awkward hiding place.

Books and papers and trinkets slid as he tugged the journal free, but he paid little mind to the mess as he shoved it aside with a swipe of his hand.

"Pen. Pen," he chanted to himself as he pawed through more papers and mess on his table. He winced at the clatter of items crashing to the floor, but made no move to pick anything up. "Why is there never a pen when I want one?"

He really needn't have made such a complaint. As he hurriedly opened the journal, a pen tumbled free and fell down toward his lap. Foolishly, John fumbled and tried to catch it before it fell into his lap, and in the process managed to knock his journal from the table as well.

"Oh in the name of our Lord," he muttered to himself as he shifted in his seat to look down at the book on the floor. "How can I possibly…" He paused and frowned at the pages of the book that had opened with its fall. "What have we here?"

He really should've known what entries he'd made in his own journal, but with so many bleary mornings struggling to find coherence, let alone write coherently, he truly didn't remember much. So hasty were his efforts in trying to write out as much as he could possibly remember before the dream left him completely that he barely remembered what he had written before he'd finished writing it.

He slowly drew the book into his lap and let his eyes scan the open page for a brief moment before he completed its journey up to the tabletop.

"She's my best friend and my oldest companion. She's seen my every pain, my every thrill. She's been with me for almost all of my life and will never leave. She's all I have when what I want … what I _need_ … is too far from my reach. And I'm all she has to hold onto."

"She's the last member of a revered species. She's alone. I'm alone. We're both alone – even though we have each other."

John frowned at the messy text that half ran through spilled ink on the page. Scratch marks from his heavy hand and broken-tipped pen made deciphering it easy enough, but he still had to spend time analysing the strokes and grooves in the paper to understand his writing.

"TARDIS," the page read in large letters written atop a drawing of a tall wooden box. Randomly spread across the page and written with haphazard strokes through and around the ink blots were the words: "Time, Relative, Dimension," and "Space."

Whatever that meant, John didn't totally understand, but he now knew what this TARDIS was. She was a ship, and she was his best friend.

"Just how can a machine be someone's _friend_ ," me mused quietly to himself as he licked at his finger to flick another page. "Let alone a _best_ friend?"

The next page held a drawn image of a blooming rose with the words "A perfect Rose" written in careful and deliberate script beside it. Those words were really the only ones that were easily discernible on the page. Nonsensical sentences talking about his search for the perfect rose and the faceless blonde woman who wouldn't talk to him, wouldn't help him find a rose filled the remainder of the page.

"I need to find my Rose." Filled the page opposite. Those words filled the page in such random hand weights and alignments that he felt he must've filled the page over the course of days rather than in one sitting. Some lines were neat, others hurried and desperate. Most of them, however, were written in a script so shaken that he must've been emotional when we wrote it.

He spent some time flicking through pages and taking in the random bits of information he could glean from his waking memory. He gasped at the images of faces that drew terror from deep inside him, frowned at faces that drew anger from within, and shuddered at the pained words of a broken heart when speaking of friends and companions lost to him throughout his adventures. For the bulk of his reading, however, he maintained a casual curiosity that lifted his brows and held his eyes wide.

"Well, space traveller," he hummed to himself as he flicked past another page and saw the page filled with drawings of the faces of nine men. "You are quite the enigma, aren't you?"

His eyes drifted past each face and the unintelligible words obviously assigned to each. Each were uninteresting, really, for the most part. Until he saw the lines of a long scarf and wild hair curling out from underneath a fedora. The words "The Doctor" were scratched deeply into the page and ran into the face of the man with the scarf.

John Smith shook his head. "No," he breathed to himself. He tilted the page in front of him as though changing the angle might move the image and give it more clarity. "This can't be right. How could I possibly have known of this man before I even met him?"

He flicked the page in hopes to find answers regarding the scarf and hat, and found pause at the image of a woman cradling the curve of a swollen belly surrounded by words that made no sense to him at all.

"I knew him before he was even conceived. I lost him before he was even born. I couldn't hold him, but oh, how I love him. My son. My beautiful boy, so brilliant and so like me in every way." I giant ink-stain shielded him from further revelations as it engulfed any remaining words from him. He leaned closer to the page and squinted his eyes to try and read what he had written before he'd spilled the ink. Grooves in the page showed an image of a dramatically scrawled "G", but that was the only letter that he could cleanly decipher. He didn't have to think too hard to work out what _should_ have been there. Obviously it was the name of the chestnut-haired little scamp that walked the hallways of Farrington with the same energy and speed that his mouth moved.

With a sigh lodged in his throat he traced his fingertip along the curve of the woman's swollen belly. "Gallifrey. _There_ you are, my boy. Right there."

He drew his finger along the curtain of hair that obscured the woman's face. "Is that you, Rose," he whispered quietly to himself. "Is this the memory of you – of us - that can't break through to me?" He sniffed. "Was my mind so lost with grief that you'd left me that I forgot you both so completely?"

He frowned and straightened up a little in his seat. "But why did you leave?" His head tilted to one side. " _Why_? Why couldn't we make it work? What happened? It's clear I loved you with everything inside me."

He wore a grimace of confusion as he flicked through more pages in his journal, hoping that he'd find any kind of answer to his question of how and why.

"ROSE!"

The word screamed to him from a wrinkled and torn scrap of a page only a few pages from where the pregnant belly lay. He felt his heart immediately hammer inside his chest at the crumpled mess of a page that looked to have been torn out, crumpled up, and then hastily shoved back into the journal with nothing more than a small sliver of tape in the centre of the page to hold it in place.

He slowly drew himself out of his chair and held the journal against his chest as he looked at the damage to the paper. It wasn't torn, at least not by hand, but it was clear that there was a definite attempt made to shred it and destroy the memory it contained. A closer examination of the rips, and the paper below that showed through the holes in the page, showed deep grooves and lines. Obviously he'd dug repeatedly at the page with his pen. Over, and over again. With a shaking hand he smoothed out what was left of the paper and let his eyes fall on the image of Rose Tyler's face, contorted in horror, and her hand desperately held out in front of her to reach for him. The terror inside her eyes lit a shudder of despair within his, and the hand seemed to burst from the page to grab at his heart and pull it from his chest through his throat.

A sob coughed out of his throat with so much force that the journal may as well have drawn out his heart. Whatever had pulled them apart was a devastation that neither of them thought they'd survive.

Had it been an unplanned pregnancy within an unwed woman's womb that had separated them? Were her family so cruel to have taken her away from him without allowing him the right of being able to step up and take her as his bride? He didn't need to remember _them_ to know that he would've married her without a thought. The devastation shown in this defeated scrap of paper was proof enough to him that he would have done it – married her – and that their separation was the single most devastating thing he'd ever experienced.

With tears coursing down his cheeks, John Smith gently closed the journal and set it on the table. He hiccupped deep gasping breaths as he aligned and then realigned the placement of the book on the table.

She was lost to him now. Rose Tyler was now Rose Smith, wife to a Doctor, wife to a man who would no doubt be able to easily provide her and _his_ son with everything they could ever possibly desire in life. Doctor Smith could give the two of them so much more than he ever could on his professor's wage.

He pressed both hands into the table and dropped his head low between his shoulders. If Rose was to be a _Smith_ , then it should have been to _him_.

There was a light tap at the door, a feminine rap of knuckles against wood, and then the creak of door hinges in need of oiling.

"Mr. Smith?"

John lifted his head and looked toward the doorway as Joan Redfern stepped cautiously through. "I'm not entirely decent," he admitted with a hoarse voice. "But if you are able with withstand an image of a man in nothing but his nightwear, then come on in."

She smiled a coy grin. "I've seen men in their nightwear before, Mr. Smith. I have been nursing for many years now and patients don't typically wear their day wear in bed."

He feigned a laugh with a puff of a couple of breaths and a light shake of his head. "I didn't think of that."

"Are you alright," she queried cautiously as she moved to the table beside him. "Martha mentioned that you've been in here all day. You haven't touched your meals, and haven't left your quarters for the entire day."

"I'm just tired, I suppose," he admitted with a sigh as he wiped his hand heavily down his face. "Chasing around young Gallifrey last evening really took it out of me."

She held her hand to his forehead and pressed the backs of her fingers against his warm skin. "Are you coming down with a cold, perhaps? I was rather chilled last evening, and you were outside for quite a while."

"I'm fine," he breathed with a huff. "At least physically anyway." He searched for pockets in his pyjama pants and huffed when he found none. He made do with folding his arms across his chest. "It's still early afternoon. I'll take a bath and take a walk on the grounds…"

"It's mid evening, Mr. Smith," Joan corrected him with a furrow in her brow. "Seven in the evening if I'm not mistaken."

John's eyes widened. "Surely you jest, Joan."

"I'm afraid that I don't," she replied with a smile. "Martha was instructed not to bring in your evening meal until I'd had a chance to examine you first. When she brought back your lunch and we saw it untouched, and then mentioned that you were sleeping fitfully in your bed late into the afternoon, it was decided that a consultation was in order."

A brow rose on his forehead. "Yet you waited until the evening to enquire to my health?"

Joan snorted heavily. "Well with both Miss Dvoratrelundar and Miss Tyler being absent to attend to Miss Tyler's wedding ceremony, we're been short staffed. I had to wait until Miss Tyler – now Mrs. Dr. Smith - to return to leave my station."

He cleared his throat and licked at his lip. "And how is she? Rose, I mean. Does she appear to be happy?"

"Radiant," Joan replied with a smile. "Absolutely radiant."

"And Gallifrey?"

Joan seemed a little stunned by the question. "I didn't see the young boy. He is with his father for the evening."

John muttered something under his breath and backed away from the table. Joan tilted her head curiously. "Well. That's behaviour more suited to the child you asked about. Are you, perhaps, _jealous_ , Mr. Smith?"

He shook his head and rolled his eyes as he spun in place and fell into a seat on his mattress. "I have nothing to be jealous of."

Joan put her finger at the corner of the journal and swirled the book around in a circle. "Well that's good to hear."

He looked up at her with a frown of realization. "Miss Redfern. Is this your way of expressing to me your interest?"

"Oh," he breathed with a laugh as she flipped open the first page of the book on the table and let her eyes scan through familiar images and swirling, circular lines across the first page. "I thought it was already clear my intentions toward you."

He cleared his throat awkwardly.

"The whole facility is most aware of it, Mr. Smith."

"I see."

She inhaled a high noted sigh as she flicked to another page and saw the image of TARDIS on the page. "What is this?"

John Smith rose quickly from the bed and moved across to the table. He wasn't gentle as he dropped his hand on the book to close it roughly from her view. "That. That's private."

She flicked a look up to him. Her eyes twinkled with mischief. "If it was private, John, would you have left it out for just _anyone_ to see?"

"I was writing an entry when you came by."

"An entry that upset you," she offered as she touched her hand to his arm and stepped in close to his side. "And one that should be shared with someone willing to listen to your pain."

He shook his head and let out a forced laugh. "Oh. Noone wants to listen to my pain." He poked his finger at the book. "This – if shared with anyone – would likely see me committed."

"Pardon me?"

"Flights of fancy," he said with a sigh. "The dreams of a mad man."

"With a box," she offered quietly.

That made him laugh. Loud. "Yes! Yes of course. The tales of a mad man and his blue box travelling the stars through space and time, breaking hearts and breaking himself."

She slid her hand along his cheek and guided his face toward hers. "And do you know this mad man and his box, John?"

"He's just fantasy, Joan." He licked at his lip and looked down at hers. "Just a figment of my imagination when the lights are all off and I close my eyes for the evening."

"Are you sure about that," she queried as she stepped forward and brushed her nose against his. "I'm sure he's real, and you know exactly who he is."

He scooped his head low in an attempt to pull away from her advances and rather unintentionally pressed his lips against hers. His eyes were wide with shock, but he was frozen in place. He didn't increase his pressure against her mouth, nor did he immediately pull away from her. He panted worriedly through his nose as he straightened his arms and clenched his fists hard against his sides. There was relief inside him that the kiss was not immediately accepted by Joan, nor was it in any way reciprocated. Her inhale seemed more against the contact rather than one that showed her willingness to engage with him. With his mouth still against hers, he let out a breath and slowly drew himself away.

"I'm very sorry, Joan," he breathed as he slowly backed away from her ad raised his hands to hold his palms loosely outward. "I don't quite know what happened there."

She touched at her lip and seemed to shift in her stance in indecision as whether or not to flee with a scream or stay and accept his apologies.

"Really," he assured her. "It won't happen again." He dropped his head and actually laughed. "Another flight of fancy to put in my journal, perhaps."

"No."

He raised his eyes. "Pardon me?"

She quickly closed the distance between them and clutched at his pyjama top. "I said no," she clarified.

He put his hand on her hips. "No to what, Joan?"

Joan inhaled a deep breath and grit her teeth hard. With a growl and a grunt, she fisted his shirt and tore it open, spraying buttons and making him gasp.

"Joan," he breathed almost fearfully. "What're you…"

She crushed her mouth against his, shoved him backward on the bed and straddled his hips. "Just shut up," she commanded.

John panted heavily as he tore his mouth from hers looked up at her towering over him. "But…"

She shoved his shirt off his shoulders and hurled it across the room. "There are no buts, John. Just us." He drew her finger down the centre of his naked belly. "I think you need this."

He exhaled a long breath of indecision of just how to push her away and not completely offend or upset her. He winced and shook his head as she undid the clips in her bun and let her hair fall down in waves over her shoulders. "No," he whispered hoarsely. He lifted his hand to her chest to kindly guide her away from him. "We can't do this," he pleaded. "Not under these circumstances, Joan. I can't."

"What kind of circumstances," she demanded hotly. "We're two people, a man and a woman, who feel for each other. This is what two people who are in love do with each other."

"But I don't love you," he muttered back quietly, trying hard not to be cruel. "I'm in love with another. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but I can't do this. Not now, and not with you."

"Don't be a fool," she answered back with a sigh. "You're a Human man. You can always do this."

He writhed uncomfortably underneath her, wincing at a slowly building burn inside his belly. He grimaced and let out a growl of pain as her mouth connected with his. "Miss Redfern," he growled. "Please stop. This is not me. This is not who I am."

She laughed from above him as she locked him between her thighs. "Oh, I know, John. I know this isn't who you are." She pressed her palms into his chest and against the blue pendant seated between his pecs. She hissed as it burned against her fingers. Her hiss quickly became a smile of victory as she identified the stone against his chest. "Oh? So it is you, then? Hiding like a coward."

He merely blinked up at her.

"How about you show me just who you are." Her voice lowered to a quiet whisper against his ear. "Release the Time Lord."

He gasped hard at that those words and at the burn inside his gut that seared up into his chest. He moaned painfully as he pushed his hand up against her chest to try and hold her off him. "Joan. please."

There was a sudden horrified gasp from the doorway followed by a crash of smashing crockery on the wooden floor.

John gasped and immediately stopped his movements to turn to turn his on the mattress to face the door, desperately fearing it was Martha coming by to bring him his meal.

The horrified face at the doorway was worse. So much worse than he'd feared.

"Oh my God. Gallifrey…"


	37. A Handmade Mug

A/N: Two chapters in one day ... dunno how I did it, but I pulled out nearly 10,000 words today. I can't see, and I'm dying where I stand ... but I did it!

Not so sure of the quality of the work, though. But had to get through this to get to the good stuff tomorrow. Can't wait.

Please trust me. There are reasons that I do what I do and how I do it. This was necessary...

~~oooOOOooo~~

Moments previous….

Although Martha Jones had lost count somewhere around the 1000th stroke of her brush, she was sure that she'd scrubbed the same place on the wooden floor below the stairs with about 3000 strokes. She was adamant that she was going to clear off this stubborn oil stain that had bugged the OCD part of her since the day she'd arrived at Farrington. Jenny might have suggested that the stain was never going to be removed and that many others before her had tried to do so, but she wasn't going to let it defeat her.

She was Martha Jones, for God's sake. She'd battled demons far worse than this. She would defeat this as she did everything else that challenged her.

And, of course, focusing on this blasted stain meant that she didn't have to focus on anything else – specifically the lovelorn Time Lord-come-Human currently pining away in his room upstairs.

It was hard to watch him like this. The Doctor was a proud Time Lord who would be aghast to know that his self-pity was on display like this. He was so fast to condemn the basic human needs like sleeping and eating, that he'd be quite embarrassed at himself to know that he'd spent an entire day in bed because he was upset that the target of his affections had chosen another man…

…especially that the _other_ man was actually himself.

She would have laughed at the absurdity of it if she didn't in some way empathise with him. She knew the pain of having the target of her affection be in love with someone else. How could she really condemn him for feeling that pain within himself? He was only Human after all. Heartbreak and unrequited love were par for the course.

But this was the _Doctor_. She could afford to have a quiet laugh at his expense about this. And by God, she was going to.

So her laugh started quietly deep inside her belly. She quietly let the unheard chuckle bubble up into her chest than into her throat, and then let it pass through her pursed lips.

"Wanna share in the joke, Martha?"

She inhaled her laughter with a gulp and quickly lifted her head to address the amused voice coming from just above her head. She was able to release her gasp with a smile when she saw the toothy grin spread across a freckled little face framed by a wild mop of chestnut hair.

"Oh, it's nothing, Gal," she answered as she let the last giggle puff out of her mouth. "Just a laugh of irony, really."

"Ahh," he breathed without breaking his grin. "One of those. Yep. I do that sometimes." He shrugged a shoulder and dropped into a seat on the floor in front of her with a cross in his ankles and his knees folded in front of him. "Usuallly it ends up bein' one of those inside jokes that no one else but you gets, yeah?"

"Something like that," she admitted as she tossed her scrubbing brush back into her mop bucket. "How was Gallifrey, then? Did it match up to your expectations?" She frowned as she leaned in a little closer to look at his face. "And how long were you _there_? You've got so much colour in your face!"

He grinned and bounced in his seat. "Oh. Martha. Gallifrey is _incredible_! It's the most amazing place I've ever been!" His bouncing increased enough that he was practically on his knees. "Oh, all the places we went and all the things we got to see! Dad took me to Arcadia and showed me the Pentacon and the mighty Citadel. We picked magnolia fruits in the orchard. We visited the caves on Mount Lung, and got to go camping underneath the stars on the banks of the Cadonflood River where mum and dad got married. Oh! Oh! And guess what?" He squealed just slightly. "I made friends! Real friends! I got to play with the other youngsters of a couple of the other chapterhouses, and even got to have a sleepover at Fordfasting!"

Martha tilted her head affectionately and gave him a smile. "Oh, Gal. I'm so thrilled to hear that."

"It was the best month of my entire life!" He tapped his finger on his lip and giggled. "Gallifrey time, of course. I mean here we've only been a few hours, yeah?"

"Twelve," Martha stated quickly. "Twelve very long and boring hours without my favourite little scamp walking beside me and talking my ear off."

"Awwww," he sang. "Did ya miss me?"

"Of course I missed you, you little monkey." Martha rubbed at his head, chuckling at the way his head dipped down below his shoulders and at the goofy little smile that crossed his face as he purred his pleasure at her contact.

"I think it might be wise to inform you," Romana said with a laugh as she stepped up beside the pair. "That the head is a noted erogenous zone for Time Lords."

Martha's hand stilled on top of Gallifrey's head. "Uhm, what?"

Gallifrey poked out his lip in disappointment. "Awww. Don't stop."

"It is," Romana continued. "Although at his age, the gesture is considered a comforting one more than one intending an arousal response, but when he reaches puberty either at the age of ninety, or with his first regeneration – whichever comes first – that will be an action of _invitation._ "

Martha whimpered, then gagged a little and quickly snatched her hand away. "If that's a joke, Romana, it's a very cruel, sick and twisted one."

"You don't believe me?"

Martha narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "With you it's kind've hard to tell. Unfortunately, I don't currently have another Time Lord present to get confirmation…"

"Which means you have no choice but to believe my words," Romana challenged with a cheeky grin more appropriate for Gallifrey than for the usually distinguished Lady of Time. "Doesn't it?"

Martha raised her hand and pointed an accusing finger toward Romana. "You've been spending entirely far too much time with the evil child of the Doctor."

"I'm not evil," he defended indignantly. "I'm a very good boy. Even the cousins at Fordfasting said I was very well behaved." His grin returned and he swayed happily in place. "What a _house_ ," he exclaimed. "It's sentient like the TARDIS, so anything you want, any time you want it, it just trundles your way. So cool! So high-tech and awesome."

"Fordfasting is actually a very ancient home that hasn't seen many of the upgrades that homes such as your father's have received."

"Really?"

Romana nodded. "Really."

"So," Gallifrey queried with suspiciously narrowed eyes. "I guess next you're gonna tell me that Heartshaven is even better than Lungbarrow, yeah?"

She smiled and scruffed at his head. Her voice shifted to a tone of a mother speaking condescendingly toward a petulant child. "Oh, are you upset at the idea that your dad's legacy isn't the best."

Rather than his typical puppy dog reaction to the scruffing of his head, Gallifrey dipped his head and curled a lip in annoyance. "Dad's legacy is _me_ , which means that his legacy is the best of them all."

Martha peppered out a handful of doubtful sounds in the form of: _uh uh uh uh uh_.

Romana lifted her head. "Yes, Martha?"

"I thought you said that scruffing his head was inviting arousal?"

"I also said: Not at his age." She rolled her eyes with a smile. "Humans really only hear what they want to hear, Don't they?"

Martha folded her arms tightly across her chest and glared toward the smiling Romanadvoratrelundar. "I _hate_ you, you know that?"

Romana clapped her hands in an excitable manner. "Oh, that's wonderful, then! I've managed to be able to adjust to the Human experience in far less time than the Doctor had anticipated."

"Huh?"

"Having a female human friend hate me."

Martha dropped one brow, while letting the other rise high. "How is _that_ considered adjusting to the human experience?"

Romana gasped and looked with worry toward Gallifrey. "That isn't accurate?"

Gallifrey shrugged. "Don't ask me. I'm a boy. I don't ever, and will never, claim to know how girls minds work."

"Oh," she breathed with a huff and a frown. "Perhaps the texts I read on the subject were incorrect then." Her eyes shifted to Martha. "I apologise, Martha Jones, if I caused you any upset. My intention is to continue as an acquaintance and – I may be so bold as to suggest – your friend."

"Then might I suggest," Martha chipped back, "that you stop relying on texts written by offworlders and just live the experience instead?"

Romana rubbed at her chin. "I don't particularly enjoy not knowing things…"

"Learning by experience is sometimes a much more uplifting and rewarding learning experience than trying to learn from books."

"I'd call blasphemy on that, but I worry that I might offend, lest you be particularly religious toward a specific deity."

Martha chuckled. "Oh. No. I believe and I have faith, but I hear you. Bookworm me."

"Strange," she countered. "You don't look like a worm."

"Anyway," Gallifrey cut in before the two women could wander off along a tangent that would be denigrating to them both. "Dad's making dinner and waiting for me back at the TARDIS. We only popped by tonight because I have a present for you and I…" His voice dropped and his body dipped to make him look like a desperate little child. "And I just couldn't wait till tomorrow to give it to you."

Martha looked around Gallifrey to the front doors of the building. "And because it's dark, he told Romana to shadow you?"

"Actually," Romana countered. "I offered. I don't think it's safe for Gallifrey to be wandering out all alone after dark."

Gallifrey rocked on his hip to lean his head against Romana's leg. "You _do_ care about me, don't you?"

"As your elder and an assistant to your father, I'm somewhat obliged to look out for you."

"Don't lie," he challenged. He wrapped an arm around Romana's leg and grinned up at her. "I love you too."

Romana nodded down to the bag at Gallifrey's hip. "I promised your father we'd have you back in a half hour. We're already well into half that time, so do hurry."

Gallifrey nodded quickly and happily dug through his bag. He made a couple of sounds of disappointment as he touched at the wrong thing, and pulled out a couple of items that definitely _weren't_ on a gift list, and then found what he was looking for. He didn't bother to repack his bag as he used both hands to pass Martha a braided silver chain with a stunning silver leaf pendant on it.

She gasped at it, as the beauty of the gift. "Oh. Gallifrey. That's beautiful."

He grinned widely. "You like it?"

"I do, but I can't accept it."

His face fell into an expression of supreme disappointment. "Why not?"

"Because it looks so expensive. I can't take such an extravagant gift from such a little man – no matter how much I adore him."

"But it's from Gallifrey," he pleaded as he pushed his hands toward her again. "The chain was woven from the fibres carefully pulled from the Cadonwood forest trees in Southern Gallifrey." He swallowed and impossibly widened his eyes further in pleading. "It's an ancient artform by the elders. It's as strong as steel, but looks as delicate as a strand of hair. I had them make it especially for you."

"The leaf," Romana continued. "Is from the same species of tree. It's been fortified with a combination of natural essences that are a secret only to the craftsmen and women, but ensures that the leaf will forever maintain the strength, vitality and beauty it had when it was still part of the tree."

"That," Martha gasped. " _That's_ what leaves look like on Gallifrey?"

"Only a specific species," Romana replied. "It's considered lucky to carry with you a leaf of the Cadonwood tree, so I encourage you to accept." She tipped her head to Gallifrey. "He's been so excited to bring it to you since he picked it up on his second day there."

"Oh, Gal," Martha breathed softly as she ran her fingers along the delicate looking chain. "Thank you."

He scrambled to his knees and scuffled along the floor toward her. "Here. Let me put it on you."

Martha peeped as his arms moved quickly around her neck and he leaned over her shoulder to look at the clasp behind her head. He giggled a happy sound as he secured the clasp and then pulled back to admire the seat of the leaf on her chest.

"There," he purred as he rocked back to sit on his heels. He couldn't hide his grin to watch her touch at the leaf and exhale an appreciative breath. "It's a perfect fit. Oh, I'm good at presents aren't I?"

"And so very humble about it too, aren't you, young Lord," Romana moaned. "Self congratulations really isn't all that becoming of a Lord of Time."

"Oh come on," he huffed back with a point toward Martha's chest and the glimmering silver leaf backed by the black of her dress. "Even _you_ have to admit that Martha makes a Cadon leaf look absolutely stunning." He dipped his head and gave Martha a little bit of a goofy grin. "And you do. Make it look beautiful, I mean."

"Well don't you just have a little bit of Casanova lurking inside of you?"

His eyes lit up. "That's a good thing, yeah? Casanova? He was big with the ladies, wasn't he? I read a book about him in the TARDIS library back on Gallifrey when mum and dad were having some _private time_." He screwed up his nose a little. "Don't know that I'd be so interested in working my way through girl after girl after girl." He fluttered his lashes a little at her. "More of a one-girl kind of boy."

Martha looked to Romana with a rather disturbed expression. "Am I hearing this?"

Romana clicked her tongue and flicked Gallifrey's ear with a fingernail. "That's just about enough from you young man. Really. Showing interest in girls at such a young age – you are definitely half human."

Gallifrey gave Romana an evil glare as he cupped a hand over his ear and shrunk away from her. "Nothing wrong with being half human. My mum is Human. Humans are awesome." He continued to glare at her. "You like mum, so…."

Romana bit at her lip. She cleared her throat quietly. She inhaled a breath. "It is really time that we head back to the TARDIS, Gallifrey. Your father's skills in the kitchen aren't anywhere near as adept as he claims, and I fear that there will be irreparable damage to the TARDIS if we leave him too long with only K-9 to talk sense to him."

"That's a good point," Gallifrey agreed with a nod of his head. "Just let me stop by Dad's room upstairs so I can leave him his present and we can head back and save Auntie TARDIS from permanent damage." He rummaged in his bag again and grinned when he pulled a tissue-wrapped gift from his bag. He looked to Martha with a proud grin. "Wanna see?"

Martha nodded. "Of course. What is it?"

He tenderly unwrapped the paper to reveal a handmade mug. "When we went to Arcadia, there was an artisan there who is a good friend of dad's." He grinned as he held up the intricately decorated mug. "So dad arranged for me to spend a day with her to learn some Gallifreyan crafts. She showed me how to make this from scratch. We went into the forest to find the best mud to work with, we mixed it into a firm clay, and then made these. No pottery wheel, and no mould. We did it all by ourselves."

Romana smiled the smile of a proud parent. "I have to say, Martha. For all of Gallifrey's endless energies and constant distractions, he was remarkably focused on this task."

"Well of course I was," he snapped. "I was makin' this for dad." He pointed to a circular design in yellow on the crimson mug. "This. This is Gallifreyan writing. Romana taught it to me."

Martha was intrigued. "And what does it say?"

Gallifrey licked at his lip and then swallowed. He took a moment to prepare and then spoke a series of alien syllables along a slow and cautious sing song voice. When he finished he looked up to Romana expectantly.

Romana nodded, repeated the phrase with only a slight change in her infliction compared to Gallifrey's and asked him to repeat it to her. When he did, his return was perfect.

Martha breathed out in awe. "That was beautiful. What did you say?"

Gallifrey grinned and pointed at the circular design. "I love you Dad."

Romana's face contorted just lightly. "The correct and more literal translation into your language would be _my father who is in my hearts_ , but yes. It's the closest we have to the English phrasing he desired."

"Yep," Gallifrey chirped with a grin. He pointed out other embellishments on the mug. "This is the imprint of the petals of the Schlenk blossom, and this colour represents the beauty of the Arkytior – which is the Gallifreyan Rose – and then the silver trim on the edge, well that's the same as your necklace." His grin widened. "This took me two days to finish, and every part of it represents something in his hearts from Gallifrey. I know that, cause I asked him. It helps when you have his younger incarnation hanging about, because then you know you're going to get it right." He then frowned. "But then he's also going to know what he's going to get. Maybe it _isn't_ so good, then. Ruins the surprise."

"He's going to love it," Martha gushed. "Are you going to wait until he's him again?"

Gallifrey shook his head. "Nope. I have to take it to him now. I know he won't understand it or anything like that. You know. Being all human-y right now and all. But when he's my dad again and he knows, then he's gonna know and he's gonna love it all." He twisted the cup side to side and to the side again. "I can't wait for him to drink the tea that mum got him out of it!"

"Then maybe you should head on up," Martha suggested. "He's been all miserable in there all day. Perhaps you can cheer him up a bit."

Gallifrey looked shocked and troubled by that. "He's sad? Why?"

Martha shrugged. "It's not my place to day, Gal."

He jumped to his feet and clenched his teeth in a tight and wide grin. He held up his mug. "Gallifrey Tyler to the rescue, then."

"Be sure to knock first, Gal," Martha called after him as he young boy ran up the stairs, two steps at a time. "The matron's doing an examination of him to make sure he's not ill."

"Is he sick," Romana asked cautiously. "Is it something we need to concern ourselves with? I can have the Doctor come in for an examination and …"

"No," Martha answered her quickly. "It's nothing like that. He's feeling broken hearted."

Romana didn't appear shocked by that. "I was afraid this would happen. Human men, when they're feeling out of sorts, they will generally misbehave, yes?"

"They certainly have been known to."

"And the Matron, the one he has been known to share feelings with – is with him now?"

Martha's eyes widened with horrific speed. "Oh no."

"I'll go and keep Rose contained," Romana warned darkly. "You might want to go and prevent Gallifrey from witnessing something he shouldn't…"

Both heads shot up to the balcony as a small crash of breaking pottery was heard.

Martha's face fell. "Oh no. Please tell me it's not what I think it is."

"I'll keep Rose occupied. Martha, go find Gallifrey."

~~oooOOOooo~~

The mug fell from his tiny little fingers as he saw the vision on the bed of his father, naked from the waist up, writhing I between the legs of a woman … who wasn't his mother.

The crash and breaking of the mug on the wooden floor alerted John Smith to his presence and his eyes immediately shot to where the young boy stood frozen at the mantle.

"Oh my God. Gallifrey…"

Gallifrey's jaw was gaped and his chest stilled as his breath caught inside his throat.

John Smith extricated himself from the bed with lightning speed. He was back on his feet and made a rapid approach to the young statue that stood with his eyes locked onto a single spot on the bed.

"Gallifrey," John blustered as he accidentally kicked his toe on the leg of his bed and half hopped toward him. "Son. What are you doing here?"

Gallifrey swallowed and looked down slowly to the shattered remnants of his mug. "It broke," he muttered softly. "It took me so long to make, and it's destroyed in a second." His eyes lifted to John's. "Destroyed in a second," he repeated quietly.

John fell quickly into a squat and held at Gallifrey's arms. He winced as the child immediately tugged out of his hold and took a step backward. "Gallifrey, please don't…"

"No," he countered softly. " _You_ don't." He dipped his head and frowned a look of quiet despair. "How could you?"

"Gallifrey…"

"How could you do that to mum? To me?" His chest started to heave as he inhaled deep and panted breaths. "How could you?"

John frowned as frustration weaved its way into him. "How could I? How could I _what_?"

Gallifrey opened his mouth to speak, but inhaled sharply as Joan appeared at John's side. He shrank back as she inhaled a deep breath through her nose and then opened her eyes to look at him with a curious and somewhat surprised stare.

"Time Lord," she hissed quietly through her teeth so quietly that neither man nor boy could hear her.

John tried to reach out to Gallifrey once again. He grit his teeth and clenched his fist in frustration.

"How could you," Gallifrey charged again, quietly, along a calm breath. He thrust a hand forward to grab the chain around John's neck in his little fist. "You couldn't even take this off first?"

"Gallifrey," John said sternly as he pulled his chain out of Gallifrey's hand. "What you've seen today. You need to understand…"

"I understand," Gallifrey snarled. "I understand more than you know."

"I know that you're a smart boy."

"And I know you're a dumb _ape_ ," Gallifrey countered coldly. He yelped as Joan clutched at his arm and held him tightly. "Let go of me."

"No," Joan snapped. "You're coming with me, _child_. It's about time you were taught a lesson about the dangers of walking through doors without knocking first."

He struggled to pull free. "Let me go."

"You're coming with me!"

Gallifrey yelped as he struggled against a tight hold. He looked to the door and hollered for Martha or Romana.

John clutched at Joan's hand. "Let him go, Joan. It's fine. I'll deal with it. Let me deal with it."

"Your way of _dealing_ with this insolent little brat hasn't done much thus far, John. It's time he learned a real lesson." She curled a lip at the boy. "And I'll make sure he learns a good one."

"Joan, no. Let me speak with him alone."

Gallifrey fought against tears and fears as he continued to struggle. "Martha! Martha! Get Mum! I want my mum!"

The door flew open and Martha burst through. "Gal!"

With the flurry of Martha's arrival at the door, Joan loosened her grip on Gallifrey's arm, which gave the child the small break he needed to escape. He rushed into Martha's chest and buried himself in her apron.

"Sweetheart," she cooed. "Are you okay?"

"Under control," John assured her. "Just a little confusion with Master Tyler. Nothing I can't handle." He held out his hand. "Come here, Son. Let's talk this over."

Big brow eyes peered out from behind Joan's apron. "Don't you dare call me son," he snarled. "I am _not_ your son."

John winced. "Gallifrey. Now don't be like that."

Gallifrey stepped out of Martha's protective hold and inhaled two deep breaths as he let his little hands form fists at his side. "My Dad is the _Doctor_. Not _you_. I'd rather have no dad at all than have an ape dad like you!"

John gasped as though punched in the chest. "Gallifrey!"

"You don't deserve me and mum," he charged. "You never did. I hate you!"

He spun and sprinted from the room. He issued apology on the fly to Martha as he collided with her on his way past, but said nothing more. The sniff in his voice, however, as he issued his apology was like a billboard in the sky proclaiming his heartbreak. Martha twisted side to side, desperate for permission to follow the young boy.

"Sir. Please?" She looked at the door. "Can I please go?"

John launched up from his crouch and into a stand. His legs had barely straightened before he was pushing past Martha in the same way that Gallifrey had done seconds previously. "Sir!"

Joan sidled up beside Martha. Unrepentant as she pulled her hair up into a bun atop her head. "You are Martha, yes? Martha Jones?"

"Yes ma'am," She answered back with a polite dip in her knees.

"You are friendly with Master Gallifrey and his mother?"

"As friendly as colleagues are, ma'am," She answered warily. She then turned and curtsied. "If ma'am will excuse me, I have to go now."

Joan lowered her head and grinned a dangerous smile as she looked at the empty doorway. "A Time Lord Child – such limitless energy."


	38. The Fury of a Time Child

A/N: I actually ran out of time today. Not so much time for writing, what with housework and stuff to do. But you know what? You all got two chapters yesterday, so I think that makes it okay.

I have rewritten the end of the chapter "Journal of Impossible Things". The little bit with John and Joan left a particularly bad taste in my mouth and so I had to rework it. If you read the original post - I'm sorry, so very sorry. Please take a look at the change ... I've managed to incorporate a few change requests/suggestions from some very amazing readers. Thanks for letting me know where it was wrong and where I missed the most important things!

~~oooOOOooo~~

Fish and Chips. The order seemed easy enough. Batter some Haddock fillets, dump them in some hot oil, add some cut up potatoes, and Rassilon's your President, a meal fit for an Englishman.

The Doctor had faced many difficult tasks in his time. He'd taken out Daleks, danced around giant maggots without throwing up and destroying his reputation as being unflappable. He survived the great Jelly Baby drought. He'd woven himself into the Matrix of the Lords and defeated the Master. Why he'd defeated his old friend many times and come out relatively unscathed.

He'd even found himself as Lord President of the Council of the Time Lords and managed to hold back and prevent devastation from an invasion attempt upon Gallifrey.

Surely making up a meal of fish and chips shouldn't have defeated him.

Alas, it had. And now that the galley on the TARDIS was quite decently covered wall to wall with super-heated oil, he had to admit his defeat and see if there were any stores in this tiny little township might be able to supply him a few servings of Rose's favourite meal so that he could – in some way – exclaim victory in meal preparation.

He whistled as he walked the darkened grounds with his hands in his trouser pockets and the ends of his scarf dragging along the grass behind him. If he knew his child as well as he thought he did then he could be assured that Romana and Gallifrey would likely still be at the school – even though the promise of return in 30 Earth minutes was long past. The lad had been particularly excited about his gift giving, no doubt he was preening under the thanks and skiting about how he came about each gift.

He had to make sure that his Tenth self was diligent in reminding Gallifrey about timelines and his obligation to stick to such things. It's not good form for a Time Lord to be tardy – even if the tardiness was due to praise and accolades.

…Although Time Lords were known to be proud receivers of such.

His whistle peaked and then weakened as his lips went dry, so he released the purse of his lips, licked at them, and then pursed and resumed his jaunty little tune of Camptown Races. He practically skipped over the edging of the pathway as he crossed from the grass to the path, and then fell into a rather jovial walk.

With the school doors in sight, the Doctor picked up his pace. There was a niggling feeling in the back of his mind; discomfort, shock, and then upset. His whistle stopped as his closing proximity intensified these feelings. It made him increase the pace of his stride in order to investigate.

Something had upset his son, and on a scale large enough that he could feel the lad's heartbreak as though it were his own. His brisk walk became a jog, and that jog swiftly became a run.

The doors to the school opened, and his lad with the scruffy mop of chestnut hair burst through the doorway. He skipped a little in indecision to the direction in which he wished to run, but was quickly on his way, like a little bullet dressed in a crimson tunic and trouser set and white Converse sneakers that practically glowed like light in the darkness behind him.

The Doctor hollered out his son's name. When Gallifrey didn't stop running, be called to him again, and then a third time, this third time in a voice far less friendly. This time his call was a demand, an order from a father to a son for him to stop.

Gallifrey skidded to an immediate stop in the grass. He slowly turned to face the Doctor. His shoulders were hunched and his head was low. He glared across the quickly closing gap between them with absolute fury.

"You," he snarled as his little fists clenched tightly at his hips. "Stay the hell away from me."

The ice-cold delivery of his son's fury hit him harder than the words themselves, and it made him falter just slightly in his approach. What was a rapid approach became a careful and wary closing of the gap between them. The Doctor angled his head slightly and let his eyes quickly analyze Gallifrey's body language – and what he saw was quite literally terrifying to the centuries-old Time Lord. He, himself, had a reputation for seething fury when he was stroked the wrong way – he never thought that furious trait would be passed down to his tender hearted child.

Fortunately, his own furious streak meant he knew the best approach to take for a Lungbarrow child about to go nuclear…

…At least, he hoped he did.

He held his hand outward in a request for calm. "It's okay, Gallifrey. I'm here, Daddy's here. Talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."

Gallifrey stood inside his hunch with breath drawing in and out so raggedly that his exhale sounded out as a growl. He said nothing, but watched the Doctor's wary approach with a stone cold glare.

The Doctor slowly lowered his stature, bending at the knees to at least try to bring his tall frame down to the child's level. He kept his voice quiet and assuring. "Can you tell me what happened, Gal? What's gotten you so mad?"

"You."

The word was delivered with such searing iciness that it made the Doctor shiver to hear it. "What did I do?" He inhaled a breath and let it pass fully through his lips before venturing to ask again. Whatever the child's answer would be, it was obviously a pain given to him by his human self. "I haven't lived through this part yet, Gal," he pleaded. "So I don't know what I've done to hurt you like this."

Gallifrey's eye twitched. "Count yourself lucky that I'll actually let you live long enough to find out for yourself." His head tipped to one side and then back. "It's only, _well_ , two and a half centuries and a half dozen incarnations from now, isn't it? Plenty of time to stew over it."

That statement of absolute stupidity send a spear of anger through the Time Lord. His eyes lost their pleading and narrowed in annoyance. "You're addressing your father, young Lord. Have some respect."

"Oh. You lost that," Gallifrey growled. "That was shattered in a second like a handcrafted mug crashing down onto a wooden floor."

The Doctor's face fell at that comment. "I broke your mug?"

It was a shot in the dark. Not a good one, mind, but part of him really hoped it was _that_ simple. Gallifrey had worked tirelessly on that gift and had been so excited to bring it back to Earth. He protected it like a precious jewel on the flight back to Earth and would let no one else near it. The mug breaking could very well tip him over the edge …

…Oh please let it be that simple. He could deal with something _that_ simple.

"Is that was has you upset, Son?"

Gallifrey broke from his rigid position and paced an arc in front of the Doctor. "If you want to talk in metaphoric terms, then yeah, let's go with that shall we?" He shoved his fists into his pockets and maintained his hunch as he walked. "You broke my _mug_. You took my _mug_ , held it in your hands and then squeezed and shattered it."

"Oh dear," the Doctor breathed despondently along an inaudible breath. "What'd I do?"

"And so," Gallifrey continued darkly as he stalked a line in the grass. "Because you squeezed and shattered _my_ mug. I'm going to do the same to you." He ceased pacing to stand side on to the Doctor. He looked along the line of his shoulder toward him with such a tight wrench in his neck that he could put his chin on his shoulder. "Mum 'n Me. We don't need you. We don't need you 'round, and I don't want it." He lifted his head to look down his nose at the man. "So go back to Gallifrey and we can go back to running."

The Doctor snapped his own glare toward the child. "Don't you think that's your mother's decision to make?"

"Oh," he huffed. "When she finds out, then it's not going to be an issue, is it?"

"Finds out _what_ , Gallifrey?" The Doctor was clearly becoming frustrated with his child's runaround. "How about you _tell_ me about what I did instead of playing this cruel little game of yours. I'm not going to try and guess what the problem is. I want you to tell me." His voice softened. "Tell me, Gal. Please?"

The fury in Gallifrey's eyes faltered for a moment. A tear trickled free of his lashes and rolled down his cheek. "I can't say it," he admitted timidly. "I can't." He covered his mouth with one hand and sniffed a shaking inhale. He clutched at his belly with his other arm and leaned forward as his anger melted away completely into heartbreak.

The Doctor rushed forward to catch the young boy as he fell with great gulping sobs to his knees in the grass. He quickly hauled him up against his chest underneath his coat and held him tightly to him. "My Son, I'm so sorry."

"Why'd you do it, Dad? Why," he managed between sobs. "Don't you love us?"

"Of course I do," he vowed fiercely. "For this life, and for the rest of them, you and your mum are the entire universe to me."

"Then why," he choked. "Why did I have to see that, Dad? Why did I have to see you and … and …" He broke down again and started to pull out of the Doctor's hold. "I can't," he muttered. " I can't do this."

The Doctor tried to maintain his hold on his struggling child, but was loathe to force him to comply. "Let me find your mother," he offered finally. "Try and talk it out with your mum, and then you and I can talk it through."

Gallifrey struggled out of his hold by crawling on his hands and knees in the grass and coughed once at the ground before he could haul himself up to a stand. "Nope," he popped sadly. "I'm gonna just go walk. Walk. Yep, that's what I need to do. Walk. Or run. Run might be good, yeah?" He panted steaming breath into the night. "Walk, and run combination. I can do that."

"No, Gal. Not alone."

Gallifrey sniffed and wiped at his nose with the sleeve of his tunic. "I'm good."

"No you're not." He held out his hand. "Come on, Gal. Come with me, we'll find your mum."

There was a call of the child's name from the doorway of the school, which made both Gallifrey and the Doctor raise their heads quickly to the voice.

Gallifrey shook his head and took a step back. "No. Not dealing with him." His head shook more violently. "I don't even wanna _look_ at him."

The Doctor's reaction was actually quite similar to Gallifrey's. Looking at his older incarnation standing at the doorway of the school wearing only a thin pair of pyjama pants and hair messed and disheveled far more than even Gallifrey's after a decent head scruff, he didn't have to question any more what had upset his child.

"Oh, you are kidding me," he growled underneath his breath as John Smith's searching gaze finally fell on them. His hand fell in Gallifrey's shoulder. "On Rassilon's tomb I swear I'm going to force him to regenerate."

Gallifrey started to pull out of the Doctor's grip as John Smith jogged across the grass toward them. He winced at the call of his name and shook his head. "I can't. I can't. I have to go. Go. Get out of here."

The Doctor's hand hold faltered and fell as Gallifrey moved further away from him. He yelled as the child broke free and tore off swiftly into the woods beside the school gardens. "Gallifrey!"

Gallifrey dipped and ducked, and then disappeared into the woods, swiftly evading the Doctor, who had launched after him the instant he'd escaped.

The Doctor called out desperately to him as he ducked through tree branches and crunched through fallen leaves and twigs. His path was cut by the trunk of a fallen tree and he swore in Gallifreyan as he kicked at the trunk in frustration.

"Where is he," John demanded hotly as he emerged in to the small clearing. "Where'd he go?"

The Doctor growled as he slowly turned in place to face the man that had hurt his child. "Just _what_ did you do to my son?"

"A misunderstanding," he answered shortly as he scratched at his sideburn and looked along the treeline to assess which path he was going to take. "Just a misunderstanding."

"What kind of misunderstanding," the Doctor queried with clear accusation in his tone.

John Smith noted the raking glare that the Doctor was drawing up and down his length. He narrowed his eyes at him and snorted an indignant breath. "A misunderstanding that is none of your business."

"When it comes to the hurt of my child," the Doctor countered sharply. "It's every bit my business."

" _Your_ child," John snapped under his breath.

"Yes," the Doctor charged in response. " _My_ child."

"And if you believe that then you're a fool," John growled. "Because that boy is not yours."

"Let me guess," the Doctor chipped back as he rounded in on John. "You think he's _yours_?"

John tracked the Doctor's movement with his eyes and turn of his head. "I don't _think_ he's mine. I know for a fact that I fathered that child."

The Doctor let a brow rise and one corner of his mouth turn up in a one-sided smile. His voice was low and dark when he spoke. "Yes. Yes you're right. Your loins fathered that child…" He snapped up his hand as John's entire expression switched and his mouth opened to speak. "Wait. Oh wait. There's more…"

"How can there be any more," John snarled. "That boy is mine. I fathered him."

"Yes, you did." He turned and pressed his rump into the trunk of the fallen tree and crossed his legs at the ankle as he folded his arms across his chest. "And guess what. So did I."


	39. Running

A/N: Yeah yeah. I know. you were expecting Doctor/Doctor blowout... I had too many scheduled distractions today to even consider that. I want to pay very close and awesome attention to that bit... So instead I move this along with Gal encountering Bains...

...And that was his name, yeah?

Shrug. Well. I hope you like Gal as he channels his mother for a bit.

~~oooOOOooo~~

He didn't know where his Converse shoes were taking him, but Gallifrey didn't argue against it. They skidded and pounded at the dirt at his feet, dragged along fallen leaves, and splashed through puddles. They pulled him along until he could no longer follow, and when he could no longer keep up, his shoes buckled underneath him, and little Gallifrey tumbled painfully to the ground.

He let out a yelp of pain as his knee and the palms of his hands skidded along a dirt road, but waited until his skid came to a halt to pull himself up and gingerly cradle at his wounds. He panted heavily as he clutched his most pained wrist in his hand and gulped in deep gasps of breath as he pulled his stinging knees up into his chest.

"Oh hell," he whimpered softly. "Where am I?"

Memories of his last escapade outside the school grounds immediately came to mind, and he panicked as he scuffled backward on his little butt toward a large Oak tree at the side of the road.

"Ohcrapohcrapohcrap," he chanted quickly to himself as he looked quickly from side to side. The pain in his hands and knees and his panic made him whimper pathetically into the night. "Mum?" He called for his mother tearfully, loudly, into the night. Once. And then twice. On his third call to her, he extended the name with a whining whimpering sound. He waited with hope to hear her running to him, but when he didn't hear her, he let tears trickle from his lashes. "I want my mum."

There was nothing around him that he recognised. Nothing to give him even the lightest of hints as to where he was. An overcast night ensured that he wouldn't be able to navigate by the stars – hell, even if he _could_ see the stars, he had no idea at this juncture just which direction he'd been running to begin with.

It was cold. It was dark. It was very, very scary.

Gallifrey hugged at his legs and dropped his forehead on the torn knees of his trousers. He rocked lightly back and forth, each movement made with each rapid breath he drew. He whimpered for his mother, for her comfort, and for the tender care she'd give her baby boy because of his boo-boos.

"I'm scared, mum," he whined softly as he rubbed at this arms. "I'm scared and I'm cold."

A soft voice whispered inside his mind, which drew the young boy's face up off his knees. He blinked his teary eyes into the darkness ahead of him and his breath drew and out of him with a shudder. "Who's there?" He looked around and pressed himself back hard against the tree trunk behind him. "Because I'm warning you. My dad. My dad's not someone you wanna mess with."

The voice giggled a sing song sound in his mind, which made him shrink a little before he could find his bravery once again. "I mean it. My dad. He's the Doctor, a Time Lord. And a really mean and nasty sort of fellow if you tick him off. And if you hurt me, you're gonna make him mad. Really really mad." He inhaled and exhaled fast a couple of times. "And if you think he's someone you should worry about – and trust me, most of the universe thinks so – then you wait until you meet my mum!"

The sing song voice in his mind shifted into song and Gallifrey let out a relieved breath. "Aunty TARDIS. It's you…"

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the trunk of the tree. "Where am I?" He waited a moment and pursed his lips. He then huffed and drew himself to a stand. "Okay," he whispered. "I'm coming."

Slowly, Gallifrey limped along the dusty road following the song of the TARDIS. He rubbed at his elbows and looked cautiously around him with each step along the road. He knew he was heading further from the school, he had to be. Each step took him deeper into the darkness, and he had to wonder just what was the TARDIS playing at to be sending him further away from the school – and further away from his mum.

Darkness played a trick with the young boy's mind. More than once he let out a terrified gasp or yip at movement in the shadows surrounding him. Whispers along the breeze and rustling of brush.

Oh hell was walking alone in the dark scary?

Gallifrey tried to whistle a tune to calm himself of his increasing fear, but found himself unable to hold the purse of his lips required to do so. He continued to attempt a whistle; however succeeded only in blowing out air and spittle.

There was a rustling in the bushes beside him, and Gallifrey let out a yelp as he spun to and skipped sideways to both investigate and to escape. After a couple of steps, he stumbled on his own feet and crashed down hard on his hip and hands. He let out a long cry of pain at the stinging in his cold and scraped hands and tried to find the energy to pull himself up. He made it only as far as to lift his chest off the ground with his hands before he came crashing down once more. The burning pain of torn skin being pushed down onto loose gravel was simply too much for the youngster to push through.

He choked out a strangled sob and curled into a little ball on the road.

"Well well well," a voice of a male – likely early teens – laughed out from above him. "Just what do we have here?"

Gallifrey blinked in the darkness and looked up to the voice. "Who's there?"

The boy laughed. "Why, is that Gallifrey? Gallifrey Tyler?"

Any pain Gallifrey felt quickly dissolved into dread and embarrassment as the owner of the voice made his identity crystal clear. "Bains," he muttered with a sigh.

Bains grinned a dark and toothy grin as he crouched down beside where Gallifrey lay on the ground. "What's wrong, little boy. Got a boo boo?"

"Go away."

"I heard you calling out for your mummy," he teased with a slap of the back of his hand against one of his friend's chests – Gallifrey noted gravely that he was with two other boys. "Mum, oh mum, come save me. I'm scared and I've got a boo-boo, oh boo-hoo." He wrenched his fist at his eye to mimic crying. "Boo-hoo-hoo"

Yep. That was about enough to give young Gallifrey Tyler the incentive he needed to haul his cold and scared butt with a boo-boo on it up out of the gutter and back on his way toward his waiting Auntie TARDIS. He did so with as little wincing in pain that he could, but still held at his aching arm as he shuffled a couple of steps backward away from the older boy.

"Why don't you go pick on someone your own size," he bit out as he continued his backward stride.

"Because it's just no fun," Bains countered with a shrug. "Little boys are so much better at whimpering and calling out for their mother."

"You've met my mum, yeah?"

"Oh, that pretty little nurse at Farrington?" he purred. "Oh, we _all_ most certainly have – or have _wanted_ to meet her." He sucked in air through his teeth. "She's got a smile that could butter a turnip or two."

He didn't know whether to take compliment in the fact someone thought his mum was hot, or be disgusted by it. He was going to go with disgust, because ... well … eww. That was his mum.

"Yeah, well, you pick on me and you're going to find out just how _not_ good at buttering turnips she is." He frowned at himself. "Well, _that_ sounded much better in my head."

One of Bains' equally large friends stepped up to the cowering child and sneered down his chest at him. "I think this one's being a little smart with you, Bains." He snatched at his ear, grinning when Gallifrey peeped. "Reckon he's due for a bit of a beating, don't you?"

"Oh I'm really not," Gallifrey half pleaded. "Had one last week. Got another few…" He peeped and winced when Bains clutched at the front of his tunic. "Please don't."

Bains opened his mouth to speak, but instead let out a cough of disbelief. His eyes slowly flared open wide as his head shifted into a low tilt. "Well well," he purred. "What have we here?"

"I have a list," Gallifrey grunted as he clutched Bains' hand and struggled a little for freedom. "Lots of things here, really. Lots and lots and lots of things." He grunted, and then yipped when Bains dropped his head, closed his eyes and …

…Sniffed?

Gallifrey's face fell into an expression of absolute quiet surprise at that. He craned his neck as far back as he could from the boy and looked at him along the length of his cheek. "What do you think you're doing," he asked slowly. "Besides trying to totally creep me out, of course. Because you are. Creeping me out that is. Like. A lot." He craned back further as Bains sniffed another long inhale. "You know what. I changed my mind. You can totally go ahead and beat me up. Just stop. Stop doing _that_. Like stop it now. Please."

Bains' eyes flared into an intense wide stare of thrill. His teeth bared into a smile. "Time Lord."

Gallifrey's hearts sank in his chest. He tried valiantly not to show his sudden terror at the cold and evil utterance of his species name. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh," Bains corrected with eyes still flared in delight. "But I think you do." His head dramatically tilted to one side. "They told me that you'd hidden yourself, Time Lord. I didn't think you'd be so low as to hide yourself in the body of a child."

Gallifrey stopped struggling. He planted his feet firmly in the dirt and dipped his head into his shoulders ready to stand his ground. "I think you're confusing me for someone else," he challenged fearlessly. "I'm not hiding from anyone."

Bains used his hold on the front of Gallifrey's tunic to haul him up closer to his face. "I can _smell_ you. Smell all that filthy Time energy inside you." He licked at his lip and waggled a brow. "Smell it."

Gallifrey's feet dangled just millimetres from the ground. He kicked at the dirt with the toes of his Converse in a desperate attempt to find purchase and maybe the leverage he needed to pull away. He panted as he resumed his struggle for freedom.

"I had a bath this morning, thank you," he muttered rather pitifully. "So if you're smelling anything it's my scented bubble bath."

Bains' friend put a hand on Bains' wrist and urged him to put the lad down. "I think we're done here, Mate. You've scared him, that's good enough."

Gallifrey was gasping for breath now as he continued to kick at the air and only manage to lightly scruff the dirt with his Plimsols. "Yeah. Listen to him. I'm scared. Okay? You got me. Now let me down."

Bains' brows raised high and he widened his eyes with a falsely sympathetic look. "Oh. I don't think so," he answered condescendingly. "See. I came here to find myself a Time Lord." He leaned closer. "My whole family came here looking for one." He inhaled a hiss through his teeth and then licked hungrily at his lip. "And I'm not letting this delicious little morsel go."

Bains' friend winced in confusion and took a step back. He held up both hands and backed away. "Yeah. Well you do what you want, then. Me and Edwards, we're goin' back to the school before they realize we're gone."

"Yes," Bains breathed back in response. "You do that. I won't be too far behind."

Great. Now that the two boys had wandered off, Gallifrey was faced with having to deal with this bully on his own…

…A bully apparently very familiar with Time Lords. Which meant he was probably on the up and up about aliens. Which also meant that it was very likely that he was an alien too. Which – and this made Gallifrey stop struggling and shrink completely into his shoulders. – which also meant that it was very likely that Bains was one of the aliens that his father was hiding from in the first place.

"Forgive me Mum," he breathed to himself. "But this is worthy of the big one." He inhaled, swallowed, and then uttered a four letter word that began with an "F" and ended in "K". He extended the sound of that word like it was the last one he was ever going to utter.

…If that didn't make his mum magically appear out of thin air to scold him for it, then he was completely out of ideas.

Bains snorted. "Looks like it's just you and me, Time Lord."

"Yeah," he huffed. "Looks like it."

He finally let Galifrey's feet touch the ground, but only for a moment. Only until he felt the young lad tense up as he readied for escape. "Nuh-uh-uh," he chided as he picked him back up off the dirt. "We've come too far looking for you for me to give you the upper hand."

Gallifrey wondered if ignorance would work. "I really don't know what you're talking about, Bains. I've never heard of a Time Lord."

"No?" he queried facetiously in response. "Oh, but they are good eating. Especially if you get them nce and young. So tender and so full of vitamins and minerals to keep you healthy."

Gallifrey swallowed. "That really sounds quite ludicrious."

"You won't think so once I've taken you back to our ship," he growled. "You won't think it ludicrious or funny at all." He fisted the fabric of the tunic beside the fist already holding a handful and drew Gallifrey's face close to his. "And then. When I'm done." He huffed hot breath into the child's face as he laughed. "And then. I'll kill your mother, too."

Gallifrey still completely. His struggling stopped. His growling, grunting and whimpering stopped. His breathing stopped. All that moved were disgusted little eyes that shifted with a determined slide toward Bains'. "What did you just say?"

Bains bit at the air in front of Gallifrey's nose. The click of teeth preceded the words: "You heard me. Your mum's next."

Gallifrey's feet raised quickly strike at Bain's legs and thrust his legs straight to stand him up on Bains' thighs. His hands shot up to clutch handfuls of his school blazer, and he stood in a hunch over Bains' face. "Noone threatens my mum," he growled into his face.

Bains still had his fists full of Gallifrey's tunic, and while he was caught off guard by a suddenly nimble and strong little boy that now towered over him, he was confident he still had this battle in hand. "Four of us and one of you, little Time Lord." He grinned. "Who'd you think'll have the upper hand, then?"

"The wolf cub," Gallifrey answered cryptically as he twisted at his wrists to tighten his hold on the lapels of the blazer.

Bains snorted. His voice lowered to a whisper of challenge. "Try it. Your mum's mine."

A sudden heat flowed from his feet to his head. His breathing grew to a pant and he puffed cool breaths into Bain's face. "Leave my mum alone," he snarled as his eyes suddenly flashed a brilliant amber that glowed hot against Bains' face. "I'd destroy you and your entire planet," he threatened.

Bains gasped. His eyes widened horrifically. "What are you? What sorcery is this?"

Gallifrey kicked his right foot down against Bains' left knee and used the sudden displacement of weight to topple the taller boy off to one side. Bain's fell to one side, staggering into a clumsy heap as he tried ineffectively to stop the fall and bring himself back to a stand.

Gallifrey wasted no time at all as he skittered across the small space between them and leapt on top of Bains. He planted his converse in the dirt either side of Bain's hips and straightened his legs to aid in driving his forearm against the elder boy's throat. His little butt was held high in the air, and his chest was low. He snarled low into Bains' face as he pressed his arm tighter against throat. "You don't dare threaten my mother."

Bains' struggled underneath Gallifrey's hold – which was surprisingly strong – and maintained his defiance, even under the amber glare of a really pissed off Time Lord. "Just what do you think you're gonna do about it? Kill me here and now, and my family will destroy you and yours."

Gallifrey maintained his position and his hold, but he rummaged through Bain's pockets a moment. He grinned when he found the item he was looking for – a silver fob watch. "What am I going to do," he warned as he brought the watch to Bain's face. He dangled low on its chain with two fingers pinched together. "Is _this…_ "

Gallfrey's eyes flashed a brighter glow of amber and the watch disintegrated into luminous dust. He blew against the swirling dust to blow it into Bains' face. He grinned a dark and toothy grin as Bains coughed and sneezed underneath him. "I see your every atom," he whispered along a ghostly and haunted voice. "And I can separate them."

"You can't… Time Lords can't do that!"

Gallifrey snorted. "Wanna bet," he drolled with a thick roll of his tongue down the inside of his top front teeth. "How much do you know of Time Lords … _really_?" His head shot up quickly at the sound of voices rapidly approaching from the distance. "Shit."

Bains grinned a moment at Gallifrey. His eyes flashed open wide with thrill. "Looks like your efforts at _educating_ me on the prowess of tiny Time Lords are going to have to wait." He chuckled into the boy's face. "We got company."

"I've got time," Gallifrey snarled. "Only takes a snap of are going to have to wait." He chuckled into the boy's face. "We got company."

"I've got time," Gallifrey snarled. "Only takes a snap of my fingers and you're dust."

"Then do it."

Gallifrey released the lock on his knees to fall down upon them so that he lay with his chest against Bains. "Go and tell your _family_ to back off. Tell them to leave. I'm not lettin' them get to me or my family."

Bains hummed. "Family? Oh how very interesting is that?"

The voices drew yet closer and Gallifrey twisted his head to look down Bain's legs at the oncoming swings of the light of swaying lanterns. He looked quickly back to Bains. "I'm warning you."

Bains twisted his head to the side and bellowed out a pitiful cry for help. For someone to save him from this rabid beast of a child before he got hurt.

"That's Master Bains," a male voice hollered out. "Edwards said that he was out here…"

"Oh," Bains said with a laugh. "You're definitely in it now, Time Lord."

"No," he breathed. "No I'm not." He quickly launched off Bain's like a rabbit leaping off a log and disappeared into the woods again.

Once again he was running in escape. He heard Bains jump to his feet to make chase. He could hear his cruel huffing laughter following him like a foul odor. He couldn't afford to stop and decide which way to run. He curled around trees, darted through brush, and leapt over small walls and fallen branches. He had no idea where he was headed, but he could hear her. He could hear the song of the TARDIS trilling loudly in his ear and knew she couldn't be too far away.

He listened to her singing and let her pull him in the right direction, where he could run in through the doors, dive under her console, and hide for the next millennium from Bains, from his Dad, from his mum – because oh, wasn't she going to be mad?

The TARDIS song finally led him toward a disused barn that elicited an immediate shudder from deep within the centre of his two hearts. "Oh-Oh-Kay," he breathed as he swallowed deeply and then stepped up toward the listing main door of the barn. He paused to press his ear against it, to make sure that there was no one on the other side ready to jump on him and do … well … whatever monsters did to little boys.

He heard nothing except the siren song of the TARDIS.

With a swallow, he curled around a large hole in the barn door. He took cautious steps into the darkened room and whispered the TARDIS' name softly as though to get her attention. She answered with a creak of hinges and a dull glow through her doorway.

His cautious approached switched to a rapid run, and Gallifrey practically dove in through the TARDIS doors. He rolled on the Ramp, but scuffled quickly to his feet to storm the door and slam them shut. His bloody little hands shook as he leaned against the door and slid down into a weary and upset little seat on the ramp.

"Oh Aunty TARDIS," he whimpered. "I'm a right mess, aren't I?"

The console slowly pulsed a dull green colour from her column as though to agree with his self-assessment.

"Any chance you could point me in the direction of somewhere I could clean up," he asked with a sigh. "Mum'll flip if she sees me looking like this." He gave a start at the sound of scuffling on the other side of the door to the TARDIS. He listened close at the voices coming from the other side and held his breath as he waited to see whether or not they would try to get into the TARDIS.

There was a rapid set of tugs on the door, and Gallifrey's hands immediately flew to cover his mouth in order to stifle the scream that he wanted to cry. He shuffled backward on his knees until the angle of the ramp became too great, and then clutched at a coral strut to pull himself to his feet. His hand fisted into a thick and long tan jacket that hung over the strut and he pulled at it. He didn't think any thought except to hide as he ran with the jacket over his back and his head and then dove underneath a small cubby-hole underneath the TARDIS console.

"Protect me," he pleaded pathetically to the machine as the tugging on the door continued. He curled up into a ball under the console and pulled the jacket over him completely, tucking it under his knees and elbows to lock himself in tight … a tiny and trembling little ball.

"Please get me my mum…"


	40. Four vs John

A/N: What can I say except ... this was a bloody brutal chapter to write. Both men have me an absolute headache and did nothing I wanted them to do... This went in a completely opposite direction than what I had intended, but I can work with this.

It's actually a little bit better than I thought it would be.

I really hope this didn't disappoint... I really, really hope so...

~~oooOOOooo~~

John Smith growled as the Doctor almost seemed to thrill in goading him. He'd just admitted to him that Gallifrey was born from him, what else was there? There was nothing else anywhere near as important as that.

"How can there be any more," He shot back with a snarl. "I fathered that child." His mind added a rather impressive tirade that involved his intentions of taking his wife and child from him so that he could reclaim his family, but that was filtered rather effectively from bursting out of his mouth.

The Doctor seemed non plussed as he folded his arms across his chest, leaned back against a fallen tree trunk and casually crossed his legs at the ankle. "Yes you did. And guess what…So did I."

The sheer arrogance of the delivery made his eye tic, and John Smith narrowed his eyes at the man. "Just _what_ kind of Doctor are you to believe that such a thing is even possible?"

"You don't think it's possible for more than one man to be a father to a child?"

"Oh," John moaned with a roll in his eyes. "You're _that_ kind of Doctor, then."

"Just what kind might that be?"

John stared straight at him for a moment. Several responses to that question did come to mind, but he kept them to himself. And after a long few seconds he shook his head and looked away. "I need to find my son."

" _Our_ son," the Doctor corrected as he pulled himself off the trunk of the tree and strode forward a few steps. "And if I'm not mistaken – and I rarely am." He paused. "Oh maybe once in a while it's happened, but not so recently."

"Get on with it."

The Doctor removed his hat and used it to point and issue a guide toward their direction of travel. "This way if you will, Mr. Smith."

"Are you very sure…"

"Quite," he replied with a broad smile as he curled his arm upward to replace his hat.

The two men walked in silence a moment, neither of them willing to begin a conversation lest it escalate to something else entirely – and both men knew full well that it wouldn't take much for an all-out argument to begin.

John Smith walked with his arms folded tightly at his naked chest. Occasionally he rubbed at his upper arms and hissed out a breath at the bite of the cool night air. His gait was rigid and closed off to the man walking beside him. He didn't want to think of this man with Rose and his child, but he couldn't help it. He simply couldn't help it, and couldn't fight against the rising sense of territorial aggression inside him. He kept his breathing long, deep, and slow to try and keep it at bay.

The Doctor, on the other hand, was the picture of ease. He walked with his hands nestled in his trouser pockets with a relaxed gait that even had a very mild kind of bounce to it. His eyes swept from side to side as though he were a tourist marvelling in the sights, not as a father looking for his lost child.

The very picture of it turned John's stomach. He held it together, however. He managed not to comment on the apparent disregard that this man showed toward his lost child … Until the Doctor began to whistle.

There was no slow lead in to the tune. There really was no lead in to the action of whistling. The pursing of his lips and the melody of the song occurred within a simultaneous moment, and it had John Smith issue an angry request.

"Do you _mind_?"

The Doctor adjusted the seat of his scarf and flung one end up over his shoulder. "Do I mind what?"

"Do you mind not whistling," he repeated through gritted teeth. "It's hardly appropriate form for a father on the search for his child to whistle a happy little tune as he walks."

"However it is considered rather appropriate when one is walking in silence at night," the Doctor countered softly as he let his fingertips sweep through the leaves of a bush as he passed. His eyes dropped to see a mouse scamper quickly away.

"I hardly see how," he muttered as he rubbed his chilled arms again.

"It alerts the woodland creatures to our presence," he answered with a shrug. "Gives them a chance to escape what they believe to be the predator."

"And how about if _you_ are the prey?"

"I often am," he retorted with a widening of his eyes and a wide smile. The smile fell to a frown. "Which I probably shouldn't admit with so much thrill, being that's why I'm here in the first place, anyway." He rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. "Perhaps I should have thought to bring K-9 with me."

John's teeth chattered just slightly and he rubbed at his arms again. "What are you babbling about?"

The Doctor paused mid-stride to look at the pasty-white fool still walking purposelessly two feet ahead of him. With a grunt, he shrugged out of his jacket and then hurled it at John with an underarmed throw. "Here. If you insist on being out here then put that on before you bloody well freeze to death."

John wasn't too proud to take the proffered garment, although it annoyed him greatly. He muttered his thanks under his breath as he gladly pulled his arms through each sleeve and closed it over his chest. He closed the buttons quickly, and in a skewed order that left him with an extra button on the bottom and no hole to thread it through.

"I never thought I'd end up a complete fool," the Doctor muttered quietly to himself as he lifted his hand and pulled a leaf from an Oak tree. He held it high, and then held it low, and then let it fall to the ground. "Perhaps it's age and regenerations creeping up on me. We are _known_ for losing our sanity as we approach thirteen." He sighed to himself. "Makes sense, I suppose. Eight was rather muddle-headed if I recall correctly."

"What are you talking about," John snapped, quickly tiring of the Doctor's mumbling.

"How age and regenerations affect one's mind," he answered without hesitation and on a firm voice. "To be more specific I'm speaking about my apparent drop in intelligence and common sense as I pass from incarnation to incarnation." He spun to look John in the face with the analytical eyes of a psychiatrist analysing a potentially insane patient. He looked at him for a rather intense few moments, and then huffed and turned back around. "Beauty over brains," he muttered to himself as his hands found his trouser pockets once more. "A pretty idiot," he grumbled. "How did I become the one thing I despise the most?"

John listened to the muttering with a raised brow. Now that he wasn't freezing to death he did have the luxury of just listening to the ramble for a while. He slowed his walk to allow the Doctor to step by him to take the lead, such was his curiosity … and perhaps leeriness of the fellow.

Without warning, the Doctor suddenly stopped and spun. He took John's head in his hands and roughly turned it side to side as though testing its weight. "The human brain, small though it is, can be quite effective if used correctly."

John yelped and snatched himself away from the Doctor. "Just what do you think you're playing at, Sir?"

The Doctor narrowed a stare at him in response. "Do you use it?"

"Do I _what_?"

"Do you use it," he repeated in a firmer voice. He barely waited before uttering a splutter. "Well? Do you? Do you use it: your brain?"

John Smith opened his mouth to speak.

The Doctor didn't let him. "And I'm referring to the one in your head," he snarled. "Not the one supposedly possessed by human men that seems to dictate his every action …" He circled his hand in the air. "…or inaction."

Again John Smith tried to speak.

Again the Doctor didn't let him. He ranted as he resumed his walk. "And while it has been long taught by medical scholars that a secondary brain did not exist in the lower hemisphere of a human man, I challenge that we need to research and study the more recent evolutionary developments to confirm the nonexistence of such."

The Doctor took a breath before continuing, which gave John a chance to actually speak.

"I'm going to hazard a guess that you're trying to imply that I'm being guided by my lust and not my brain."

The Doctor snorted. "That would be a rather polite way of putting it, and yes. I am rather."

John licked at his lip and cleared his throat in order to try and stifle himself from prouting vulgarity. "I would have put it in terms more profane, but I am a man raised a gentleman by my parents, so I shan't."

"A gentleman," the Doctor spluttered. "You claim yourself a _gentleman_?" He lifted his chin and laughed. "Oh, how blessed is this moment?" He lowered his head and glared. "You may be many things Mr. Smith, but a gentleman is not one of them."

"I'd be careful in making assumptions if I were you," John warned on a careful breath. He wasn't an idiot. He knew exactly what the Doctor was on about. "I'm not going to divulge anything about myself and my actions, as it's really none of your concern. I will point out, however, that you don't know what you're talking about, so shut it."

"Oh," the Doctor rumbled along a low growl. "That's what you need to understand. Everything that you do, have done and will ever do concern me greatly." He huffed. "Everything! And of all things to find myself having the greatest concern over." He stopped and threw his hands into his hair violently enough to punch off his hat. "Of all the fool things that could possibly concern me the most about who I will become when my face becomes yours, I never thought it would end up being that I turned myself into a fool ape human that would be so critically low in both intelligence and self-pride that he would act on his base primal instincts of shagging any female that comes within range."

John coughed. He inhaled and then he coughed again. There were several responses that he could've shot back with on each point made by the Doctor, but where on Gods green Earth could he even begin?

He clutched a tighter hold of his hair in his fists. "Why I turned myself into nothing but a craven hearted, spineless, idiot of a man." He turned on John Smith. "Were you in such an incredible hurry to hide yourself like a fool coward that you couldn't take the time to make sure that what you would become would have at least a small iota of intelligence?"

John straightened up his stance in order to attempt to bring himself in line with the Doctor's height. "If there is anyone between us suffering from lack of anything, it's you." He poked a finger into the Doctor's chest. "You've been prattling on like a nonsensical lunatic since we began this short journey to find _my_ son."

" _Our_ son," the Doctor corrected.

"And there you go again," he charged hotly. "Speaking insanity. I might not be a medical Doctor, Sir, but I know enough about biology to know that it is impossible for more than one man to sire a single child."

The Doctor smirked. "Well. In our case, Mr. _Smith_ , it was thirteen men."

Mr. Smith barrelled forward and shoved his forearm into the Doctor's throat to slam him up against the tearing bark of a tree. "How dare you imply that Rose Tyler is a lady of ill-repute."

"I Imply nothing of the sort," the Doctor growled in return. "My implications toward you, on the other hand…"

"Are _what_ ," he seethed darkly.

"You are an absolute disgrace to our entire species."

John snorted. "According to you I'm behaving exactly as evolution would have me behave. That can hardly be described as disgracing my species, can it?"

The Doctor growled and shoved at John to push him off him. He straightened his vest as he watched John stumble and then find his balance again. "When you come from a species that is inherently monogamous to the point of pain and even death as a result of infidelity, then yes, you are a walking disgrace to your entire species."

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

"You," the Doctor snarled back. "And by Rassilon I'm going to make you understand what you've done tonight, and what the repurcussions of those actions are going to be."

John snorted. "What might that be, then? Are you going to punch me in the nose and tell me to leave you and my son alone?" At the Doctor's startled blink he grinned and pointed a finger to his nose. "Go reight ahead and take your best shot. I'm not going anywhere. I'll win back my Rose and take back my son."

The Doctor looked with a raised brow at just where John Smith was pointing. He was – rather alarmingly – rather tempted to go ahead and take that suggestion. Punching that pointed nose would be rather satisfying. He lifted his brows and blinked a slow blink to shake that idea and merely offered John Smith a blank stare. "Tempting though it may be, I _won't_ be punching anything." He inhaled. "I will, however, be taking my wife and child back to Gallifrey with me." He spun on his heel and continued on his walk. "As soon as I've retrieved my son and made sure he's safe, then we're leaving." He flicked up his hand. "You can stay here in this pathetic form for the rest of your …"

He stopped sharply and let out an almost agonized groan. "Oh for the love of Arcadia." He spun again and glared toward John. "For the rest of _my_ existence. Rassilon! No matter what I'm going to end up as _you_ , aren't I?"

Any shock that John may have had in his face and his body language was rather swiftly fading. He stared at the Doctor with eyes of pity. "Sir, you're a mad fool."

"That's been said more than once."

"I don't jest," John breathed sympathetically. "I really don't know what kind of delusion you've found yourself living in, but for the sake of Gal and his mother, you do need to find yourself some professional help."

"I could say the same to you, Mr. Smith, the man who has no concept at all of what's real and what's fantasy." He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and stalked a forward walk. "A man who doesn't even know his own name."

"My name is John Smith," he snarled back.

"No it isn't," the Doctor countered sharply.

"It is," he coughed in reply. "I _think_ I know my own name."

That made the Doctor stop and lift his chin to laugh. "Oh you do, do you? You _think_? You _think_ you know your own name?" His laugh muted only slightly. "You truly are an idiot." He winced into his hand. "Which, by default, makes me one too." He stopped walking again. "Oh will you _please_ do something about this… this …" He indicated John's body with a wave of his hand. :.. this!"

John looked at him with a blank stare. "Did you lose your hold on your _supreme_ intelligence for a moment there?" He folded his arms across his chest. "It's okay. If you're still trying to think of something to end that sentence with I can wait." He pointed ahead of them both. "But in the meantime how about we go back to looking for a lost eight year old boy who's probably beside himself with terror right now."

The Doctor snorted out a long breath and thrust his hands back into his pockets. He debated whether or not to continue to speak in raised tones and continue to call this John Smith for what he felt he was – a nitwitted fool – or try to use rational explanation to try and get it through his thick little skull.

"Come," he breathed with a tilt of his head to the right of the path. "Gallifrey is this way."

John moved quickly to fall into stride beside the Doctor. "How do you know?"

"I just do," he answered sharply. "I feel him, his presence and his energy." His lip curled into asmile. "He has a very unique signature, that child."

"You're talking about a kind of bond, I'll guess," John muttered back.

The Doctor found himself amused by that. "And you think you have one with him?"

John screwed up one side of his face in discomfort as he adjusted the jacket on his shoulders. "I don't have any other explanation for it," he admitted. "That's how I knew, that I was so sure Gallifrey is my son."

Okay. Not a complete moron. John Smith had potential.

"It's a genetic, or, _parental_ telepathic bond," The Doctor Lectured. "All Time Lords have them with their children. Loomed or wombed, it doesn't matter. Any form of genetic donation to another member of the species will result in a bond being formed." He exhaled and took in a long breath. "Be it a birth from a loom, or from the womb, that child is a part of you and therefore you _will_ be telepathically linked to him."

"Uh…"

"Which is vital to the survival of our species," the Doctor continued. "With twelve regenerations giving each and every Time Lord thirteen faces throughout his living existence, a telepathic bond would need to be in place to ensure that…" He looked at John Smith and let out a breath as he shut his eyes and shook his head. "You know what, never mind. The concept is far too complicated for a feeble mind like yours to begin to comprehend." He huffed. "I sometimes find myself wondering just how a species like yours was able to crawl out of the caves at all."

John grunted. "I'm really beginning to wonder just what it is that Rose even sees in you. Yu have to be the single most arrogant, self-righteous and rude individual I've ever had the misfortune to encounter." He thrust his hands into the pockets of the jacket. Expecting for the seam at the bottom of the pocket to catch his knuckles and let him push down deep on the fabric, he was surprised to find that the pockets were considerably deeper than he'd anticipated. His surprise had him wing out the bottom of the jacket to see if he could possibly see where they ended.

"Thank you."

John coughed and lifted his head from his investigation of the jacket pockets. "Excuse me?"

"I said _thank you_."

"For _what_?"

The Doctor chuckled. "For showing me that I still have a little bit of fight left in me – even as a _human_."

John curled a frustrated lip. "Will you please give it a rest, you insane fool?"

The Doctor suddenly raised a hand to ask for silence and pointed to a glow of amber light from behind a stand of trees. "You might want to wait here a moment, Mr. Smith."

John looked around the Doctor's hand to check out the light for himself. "Is that fire?"

"No," the Doctor muttered gravely. "That's the glow of Artron."

"Which is?"

The Doctor didn't answer. He ripped his other hand from his trouser pocket and used it to toss one of his scarf lengths over his shoulder as he launched across the remaining forest area to burst out to the road. He broke through the brush in time to see young Gallifrey on top of another boy, with eyes of fire and a haunted tone to his voice.

"Oh for the love of Rassilon, Omega and the Other, please tell me no."

John pulled up beside the Doctor with a dip in his knee and a pant in his chest. "What is it," he asked breathlessly.

"Vortex energy," the Doctor growled as he launched over a shrub. "And it's going to kill him if we don't stop him.'

John gasped and leapt into a run behind the Doctor. "What the hell is _Vortex_ energy?"

The Doctor didn't answer as he broke ahead from John and tore across the grass. His approach wasn't fast enough, and Gallifrey launched forward to dart off back into the forest to the other side of the road with the other lad hot on his heels.

John finally hit his speed behind the Doctor and actually managed to catch up with him. He grinned with victory that it looked like he just might have some _superiority_ over this old man afterall, and he grinned. That grin turned to a grimace of frustration when the Doctor stopped short, and John skidded by him.

"Now, what?"

The Doctor glared through thick lashes and a wild fringe of hair into the gap between the bushes ahead of him.

"Aren't you going to run after Gallifrey," John demanded.

The Doctor's firm look suddenly fell to an expression that was far more relaxed. He pointed off to the side. "We go this way."

John skipped impatiently from foot to foot. "What?"

"I know where he's headed." He turned to the side and started to whistle as he thrust his hands in his trouser pockets and began a brisk walk along the path.

"What the hell is wrong with you," John bellowed as he pointed into the woods. "Gallifrey went that way."

"Oh yes," the Doctor agreed over his shoulder as he continued his walk. "Standard diversionary technique. He's looking to evade his pursuer in order to find his sanctuary." He whistled. "Which would be the TARDIS."

John still hadn't moved and his arms still pointed to the forest. "But…"

"Gallifrey will be perfectly safe," the Doctor assured him with a song and then a whistle. "Once he gets there, of course, which he will. Speed of a comet, that child." He spun in his stride and looked back to John. "Play a game of tag with young Gallifrey, you will always be defeated." He whistled and turned once again to continue along the path.

"The _what_?"

"TARDIS," the Doctor called back. He raised a hand and flicked his fingers in invitation. "The TARDIS is my, no, sorry, wrong direction for mine. She's _your_ sentient ship. You might want to follow me, Mr. Smith. You'll only get lost if you go through the woods."

John remained stilled in place. " _My_ ship? What are you talking about _my ship_? I don't have a ship, you mad fool."

The Doctor dropped his head backward and let out a long moan. "Oh by Rassilon." He spun to stare at John. "Stay here, go through the woods, come with me. I don't care, but for the love of the Gods do shut up." He turned back to the path and resumed his walk. "Honestly, you give me a headache."

John Smith narrowed his eyes in annoyance as the Doctor waved a dismissive goodbye up over his shoulder. He folded his arms across his chest and tapped his foot on the ground. He then lifted his head and called to the Doctor in the near distance. "Do you swear to me that my son is safe."

"He couldn't be safer, Mr. Smith," he called back. "TARDIS is quite protective of her crew – especially a crew member who gives her hugs and calls her Auntie."

John huffed in resignation. "Fine then. Hold on. I'm coming."


	41. TARDIS

A/N: Well here we are ... at that point ... time to stop dragging it out.

I honestly hope that this doesn't disappoint ... and I hope it makes sense. I have several thousand disruptions that completely threw me off track today ... completely!

For those wondering when John is going to correct assumption and explain what really happened, it's coming. It just didn't seem to fit in with what I was writing here. Sorry ... but it will be addressed.

~~oooOOOooo~~

A companionable silence fell upon the pair as they strode along the road toward the TARDIS. Only once had there been any shared words, and that was by the Doctor, who had told John to keep his mouth shut when he'd dragged him back into the woods and ducked behind a bush. A small band of men wielding lanterns had noisily passed by at that point supposedly on the search for another missing young man.

Obviously tonight was the night for escape from Farrington…

Roughly thirty seconds after they had passed, the Doctor calmly tugged at John's jacket to drag him back out onto the road, and then resumed his whistling walk as though nothing had interrupted him. John was tempted to comment on that – or anything – if only to break the silence, but he chose against it. He felt he was beginning to know this crazy man well enough to know that talking would only result in another round of insults and eye rolling. And so, he merely fell into pace at the Doctor's side, pursed his lips, and added melody to the Doctor's tune.

The dual whistling stopped when the Doctor pressed his hand over John's mouth and hissed for him to be silent.

John blinked, but didn't shove at the Doctor's hand. Instead, he looked into the near distance to where a dilapidated old barn stood hidden inside the overgrown brush of untended trees.

"What is it," he muttered wetly against the Doctor's hand.

The Doctor didn't seem to react to the wettening of his hand, but he pressed the finger of his other hand to his lips and nodded toward a small clearing in front of the barn door. When he spoke he whispered quietly around his finger.

"Gallifrey. He's here."

John shoved the doctor's hand away from his face and jostled around his shoulder to take a peek. He gasped as the young boy sprinted out of the brush and then skidded to a stop in the dirt in front of the barn door. The child's name was on his lips as he rushed forward, only to be held in the firm grip of the Doctor.

"Don't be a foolish man," he hissed against his ear. "That is a terrified Gallifreyan child, the worst thing you can do right now is spook him."

"I've had enough of your delusion," John snapped. He tugged out of the Doctors grasp and stalked toward the door. "I'm going to get him and take him back to his mother – who must be absolutely beside herself with worry by now."

"Ahh, yes." The Doctor raised his eyes to the sky for a moment, held his breath, and then dropped his eyes with a shake of his head. "She's beyond worried, Mr. Smith." He pulled a small device from his pocket and winced at himself as he thumbed a code into its face. "Thank you for the reminder. I've been on my own for so very long now." He held the device to his ear and grinned widely. "That I forget I now have a wife that I have to report in to."

"What are you …?"

The Doctor held up his hand. "Rose. Darling. It's the Doctor." He petted his hand in the air as though trying to soothe her as if she were in front of him. "Yes. Yes. I've located our little scamp. He's quite fine and is with the TARDIS." He blew out a breath. "Ten's TARDIS to be specific." He licked at his lip and nodded. "No need for you to come here. Mr. Smith and I have Gallifrey in … Yes. Yes that's correct. Mr. Smith."

The Doctor's eyes flew wide and his mouth dropped just slightly. "Destroy the very fabric of time and space? That's rather melodramatic don't you think? Where could you possibly have come up with such a notion?" His expression of shock deepened. "From _me_? Oh." His look of shock shifted to a thrilled grin. "Are you _attempting_ to educate _me_ on temporal paradoxes and causal loops, Rose?" His chin tilted upward and he let out a brilliant laugh. "Oh, my dear precious girl, how my hearts beat for you. Let's forget about closing out this causal loop and simply retire to Gallifrey and raise ourselves a house full of little time tots." His laugh shifted to a smile. "Yes. Understood. Before we talk about the conception of more children, I'll bring to you the one we currently have." A happy sound rumbled in the back of his throat. "Yes, my dear. I love you too."

He thumbed closed the connection and slipped the small device into the pocket of his vest, and then pointed to the listing doorway to the barn. "And now that I've notified Rose of our location and assured her that our son is safe, let's go get the little scamp."

John's head shook as he walked a faster pace and passed by him. "You truly are insane, you know that?"

The Doctor huffed. "Oh _what_ for this time?"

"That you think me idiot enough to believe that you have just used a little box to telephone your wife." He elbowed past the Doctor and shoved at the barn door to open it. He let out a yelp and backed up a sudden step as the door toppled off the rusted hinges and crashed noisily to the ground.

The Doctor clapped his hands facetiously as he walked through the door. "Oh bravo! You've just alerted anyone within a one hundred feet radius that we're here, good for you." He shook his head as his hands found their way into his trouser pockets and he coughed through the swirling dust. "I really must confess that I was wrong earlier."

John swiped his hand through the air to clear it of dust. "What about?"

"My assessment of you of course," he growled as he dug inside his pocket for his TARDIS key. "I may have erred when I called you an idiot."

"Well, I thank you for…"

"That would be an insult to idiots all over the universe," he continued with annoyance. "You, John Smith, are less than half of a half-wit and certainly wallow near the level of complete nitwit."

John narrowed a glare at the Doctor as he stalked across the dusty wooden and straw covered floor of the old barn. "Do you _enjoy_ being an unpleasant individual? Does it make you feel like the more superior person to belittle others with insults and name calling?"

He inserted his key into the lock and turned his wrist to turn the key. "When the individual I am insulting is worthy of insult, then yes. I enjoy it very much." He frowned when the key turned a full revolution in the lock. "As for doing it to make me _feel_ superior, I'm afraid that I don't need it. I already know that I'm superior."

"You are a jackass."

"That's quite the insult, Mr. Smith," the Doctor droned as he twisted the key again. "I feel I'll be burned for all of my future incarnations because of that one." He frowned as the key once again turned a full revolution in the lock, but didn't release the latch. "Now what is going on here, then?"

John Smith flicked up a brow as he pressed his hand into the dusty wooden door of the TARDIS and slouched in a lean as he watched as the Doctor struggled with trying to open the lock. "Having problems?"

The Doctor pressed his hand into the door and drummed his fingertips on the ancient wood. "Are you trying to keep me out," he sang on a low voice of warning to the ship. "Why would you do that, old girl? It's not very nice of you."

John shifted his hand to clutch at the handle of the door. He gave an experimental couple of tugs to see if it would give, and then increased the strength of his pull against the door. "Get me something to pry open this door," he demanded on a low growl.

"It won't work," the Doctor answered with a low growl and a dark look at the door. "This door is impregnable. Nothing and no one can get into this ship without a key."

"Oh get out of your delusion for five minutes," John barked sharply. "This is _not_ a ship. It is a box, a wooden box." He slapped his hands either side of it to illustrate its size. "Barely bigger than a wardrobe."

The Doctor ignored John's rant in favour of continuing his glare at the door. "This behaviour is most unacceptable. My son is in there, and he's terrified. Let me in this instant."

"I'm getting an axe." John looked hurriedly around the floor in the darkened room. "There has to be one in here somewhere."

The Doctor still wasn't listening. His glare and his focus was on the door of the TARDIS. "This isn't typical behaviour for you. You never shut me out. Just why are you locking me out this time, old girl." He gasped and backed off a sudden and horrified step as John crashed by him with an Axe held to his side. "What in the name of Rassilon are you playing at, Mr. Smith?"

John hunched as he held the axe in both hands. "Get out of my way, I'm going to split open that box."

"Okay."

"Hold on, what?"

The Doctor took a step back and used both hands to point at the door. "I said okay."

John frowned. It was as though he wanted to be stopped from smashing it. "You're just going to go ahead and let me smash this thing open?"

"Well I'm going to let you at least _try_ to break it open," the Doctor answered slowly. "I can't say I fancy your chances, but go ahead. Why not?"

John looked between the Doctor and the dusty door. "But you said she was your ship. If that's the case then why are you letting me smash it?"

"Well actually, this one's _your_ ship." He thumbed behind him. "Mine's in the opposite direction."

John blinked rapidly in disbelief that this madness was continuing. "Then if it's even a ship at all… why?"

The Doctor smirked. "Why are you questioning yourself?"

"I'm not," he countered as he lifted the axe slightly off the floor. "Because I am very prepared to use this axe and obliterate this door."

"Well do it then," the Doctor ordered with a grunt of annoyance. "No sense in talking about it, you imbecile." He pointed at the door. "If you think you can get through a door that was able to hold back the Roman Army and the assembled hoards of Ghengis Khan – to name only a couple of attempts – then be my guest and try." He looked to the door. "And if he gets through then serve you right for being unreasonable."

"Just get out of my way."

"Happy to oblige. Do keep in mind, however, that there is an eight year old inside this _wooden box_." He took another step back and thrust his hands into his pockets. "He's already terrorized, do you really think that you going in there swinging about that _thing_ with abandon is going to lessen his fear? I would say that there stands a much high chance that our terrified child won't see John Smith, but an axe wielding homicidal maniac."

John Smith let the axe fall with a thud into the dirt. "You're right, of course."

"I usually am."

John thrust his hands into the pockets of the jacket and flicked his hands to wing out the bottom of the jacket in a rather nervous gesture. "So what do we do, then? Wait for him to come out?"

"Actually," the Doctor answered thoughtfully. "What we need to do is to figure out just why she's not letting us in right now." He approached the door and lifted his hand to press it tenderly against the dusty blue surface. "There's something bothering her right now, and this stubborn little lady is going to lock us out until we figure it out."

John let out a long suffering growl of frustration. "Will you _please_ stop talking such insane nonsense. This," he slapped at the wood on the door. "This is _not_ a ship. You are not a _Time Lord_. This is a wardrobe. Nothing else." He slapped at the wood again, making sure to do so between each word he uttered: "Just. A. Wardrobe."

"Look up."

John's face creased in incredulity. "What?"

The Doctor raised his eyes. "I said look up."

"Why?"

"Humour me," the Doctor asked with an unreadable expression. "It's too dark for you to truly take in her majesty of this old girl, but she's providing a little bit of a _glow_ in her light box for you."

"What?"

The Doctor set his large hand on the top of John's head and forced him to lift his chin and look to the top of the TARDIS. He smiled when he heard the hitch in John's breath. "Her design is very unique, wouldn't you say? Especially in this day and age. There's no mistaking it if you've ever seen it, wouldn't you say?"

John Smith shook his head and staggered backward. "No. It's. It's. Impossible."

The Doctor shrugged with a roll of his eyes. "Improbable is more accurate. There really is no such thing as impossible. The human race proves that time and time again." He slapped lightly at the wood. "Just when you start to believe that there is no way they could possibly achieve a goal, the clever little things solve the problem, and off they go."

John stumbled on his feel and landed heavily on his backside. He scuffled back lightly in the dirt. "I. I. I…"

"Three I's in the one sentence," the Doctor said with a tsk in his voice and a shake in his head. "Be careful, you're coming across as quite an egotistical man, Mr. Smith."

"I've seen that before," he panted hoarsely. "That box. That sign."

"Of course you have," the Doctor huffed. "This is the TARDIS, your ship and your home."

John shook his head in disbelief. "No. No you're wrong."

"I'm not wrong, Mr. Smith," the Doctor countered. "I'm quite sure you've been recently questioning yourself and your, well, your…"

"Who I am," John supplied quietly.

"Correct," the Doctor boomed with a smile. "The question of who one is. Well. We all have the tendency to ask ourselves that question from time to time." He thrust his hands into his pockets and leaned a shoulder against the door of the TARDIS. "I expect that I ask myself, oh, several times a century in fact."

John remained seated in the dirt, but looked up to the Doctor with defeat in his gaze. "What on Earth are you talking about?"

"You," he stated simply. "Me. All Sentient beings, really. There does come a time where we do question our existence and wonder if we are – or if we should be – anything more than we really are." He let out a breath and turned himself so that his back was pressed against the door. "Most of the time the answer is _no_ , that you are who you are and there's very little, if anything, you can do to change that." He smiled a moment at John Smith. "But then along comes you."

"Please," John whispered in pleading. "Please just stop this."

"You, John Smith, well. You aren't John Smith at all, are you?"

"Please stop."

"Do you _want_ to know who you are, Mr. Smith?"

"I already know," John moaned. "I'm a John Smith, history professor at Farrington school for the boys. I was born in Gallifrey, my parents were Sydney and Verity Smith – both of them teachers. I went London University to study teaching and follow in my parent's footsteps."

"Anything else," the Doctor queried curiously.

"Pardon me?"

"Is there anything else? Brothers or sisters, aunts and uncles, best friends, any friends? Where did you hang out and play as a child? How often did you scruff your knees? What was your favourite meal that your mother used to make? What did you get for your tenth birthday?"

John gasped as the Doctor peppered him with questions. His eyes darted left and right as he tried desperately to find the answer to any one of them.

"Come on, Mr. Smith. Surely you can answer one or two of those, they aren't difficult," the Doctor pressed. "Give me some specifics, dear man. One thing. Anything. Prove to me who you are by answering just one question I have with absolute conviction that you see the answer with full clarity in your memory."

John's expression read agony as he sat in the dirt. His breaths panted with his confusion and inability to see any answer to any of the Doctor's questions. All of the memories in his mind were blurred and vague with only enough substance as to briefly answer a question in passing. "I…" He gasped and swallowed. "I … I…"

"Yes, yes, we've already discussed your egoism, Mr. Smith," the Doctor chipped harshly. "That isn't in question here. What is in question, is who you are." He deepened the seat of his hands in his pockets.

"I'm John Smith," he whispered in reply. "History teacher…"

"Your name," the Doctor began sharply. "Is. _Well_." He smiled. "It's The _Doctor_."

John Smith slumped in utter disbelief. "What?"

"You're not a history teacher, and you're certainly not human.." He rolled his eyes. "Well. Not usually, anyway."

"I really think I've had about all I can take."

"No," the Doctor snapped with a sudden heated glare at the man. "You haven't. You haven't had nearly enough." He briskly strode over to John and loomed high over him. "I really was going to let you figure this one out on your own. Let the three-month limit on your…" he swirled his hand in the air with a circle of disgust. "On your _Human_ form, expire. But I can see that we really don't have time for that. You're fast on the path of screwing it all up, and I'm not going to let that happen."

"I'm not even going to pretend to know what you're talking about, Doctor," John huffed. "Your words don't deserve the dignity of even a comment, but I feel compelled to point out yet again that you, Sir, are insane."

"I may well be," the Doctor answered with a tilt of his head. "But at least I am very clear on who I am, which is far more than can be said for you."

John looked off to one side and slumped. It was defeat that fueled his next words. "Then do go on."

The Doctor pulled a watch from the pocket of his vest and let it dangle from a chain held in his fingers a moment. "You're not human, John. You're not even from this planet." He heard a despondent sigh fro the man and flipped the watch so that it fell in front of John's knees. "You're a Time Lord from the Planet Gallifrey, which is in the constellation of Kasterborous. So, so far away from here."

John's eyes locked on to the watch that half buried itself in the decaying straw. "That's my father's watch."

"Yours, actually," the Doctor corrected. "It's part of the Chameleon Arc system that you used to turn yourself into this form – Human."

John let out a single huff of a laugh. "Of course. And why would I change myself into a human, then?"

The Doctor shifted down into a squat to address John Smith at an even plane. "That's actually a question I've been asking myself. And while I know I'm going to make this very decision one day, myself…"

"You keep speaking as though I am you," John interrupted sharply.

"That's because you are."

John Rolled his eyes and shook his head. He threw his arms up in resignation. "Oh. Of course I am. How could I have possibly thought otherwise."

"There is no need to be facetious."

"Oh, but there is," John retorted. "Because. Oh. Just _because_. There's no _reason_ at all in this conversation."

"That watch." The Doctor indicated it with a jut of his chin. "Is _you_. Everything you ever were and everything you're ever going to be is locked inside that watch." He paused to wet his lips and then continued. "And that includes being a husband and father."

John raised his eyes. He blinked at the grit of the dust, and squared a curious look at the Doctor. "A _what_?"

"Rose Tyler is, and always has been, your wife." He groaned as he hauled himself up to a stand to again lean against the TARDIS door. "Gallifrey is, and always has been, your son. You forgot about them both when you took this form."

"That's a lie," John breathed. "You can't tell me that."

"Well. I'm not _supposed_ to tell you that," the Doctor answered with a shrug. "But I am physically capable of doing so."

John shook his head. "No you can't say that and expect me to believe it."

"Why not? You love them don't you?" The Doctor rubbed at his brow tiredly.

"I think I do."

The Doctor shot him a glare. "You _think_ you do? By the Gods, man. You're ready to declare war against me for the right to claim the both of them, and you're telling me that you only _think_ you love them."

John glared hotly at the Doctor. "Don't begin to try and tell me how I feel or don't feel about them."

"Alright," the Doctor acquiesced. "Then let me talk about the two of them and how they feel. Gallifrey, well, he worships the ground you walk on. Regardless of your incarnation," he sighed, "or whether or not you're human, that child is going to love you with everything inside him."

That actually made John smile.

"Rose, on the other hand," the Doctor warned. "She won't."

John's smile fell. "What?"

"Well. You're not the man she fell in love with. For Gallifrey it's easy to love you – you're his father. He was born with an unbreakable bond to the man who sired him. Rose. Well. She wasn't."

"I see."

"The man Rose Tyler fell in love with is the Time Lord. The man from Gallifrey who took her hand and showed her all of time and space and made her his entire universe." He blinked a slow blink. "She won't fall for you, John. Not at all."

"That's just cruel," he hissed.

"No, it's the truth, and you need to handle it. You need to understand it. The man Rose Tyler loves is not who you are right now. She calls him brilliant. She says that there is no one else that could ever take his place. Her Time Lord makes her laugh, makes her cry, he knows how to thrill and tease her, and to make her feel like the single most important person in this entire universe."

"And you don't think I can do that."

The Doctor laughed. "You don't even believe there is a universe out there to even compare her to."

"You don't know that."

"I do," he countered with a smirk. "If you did, then you'd stop calling me insane and open yourself to the possibility that what I'm saying is true."

"Because what you're saying is _impossible_."

"What about your dreams?" The Doctor queried. "Are they really just dreams, or are they memories of a Time Lord?" He grinned and his eyes widened horrifically wide. "So _fantastic_ a life he leads isn't it?" His wide eyes looked down at the watch. "Open the watch. What'll it hurt for you to find out?"

John Smith slowly reached forward to pick up the watch. He cradled it in one hand and let his thumb lightly drag along the little button that would open the watch if he applied even the slightest of pressures. "You honestly expect me to believe all this?"

"I expect you to believe what you want to believe," the Doctor answered with a shrug. "If you want to believe that you're just a human and that all you're ever going to do with your life is sleep, wake up, go to work, eat, and go back to sleep, then that's perfectly fine. Stay as just a human."

"Or you can believe yourself a Time Lord, who has all of space and time at his disposal." He kicked his heel backward against the door to the TARDIS. The doors flew open with the Doctor's kick and immediately her dimmed centre console lit up with a brilliant glow. He let out an appreciative breath as he looked inside. "Hello beautiful."

John's face lengthened in shock. "My God." He looked to the Doctor with eyes filling with tears. "How is this possible? How is this _even_ possible?"

The Doctor leaned against the door frame and shrugged. "That answer involves quite a long explanation that details the ancient history of Gallifrey, and of the birth of the Time Lords. Honestly, I was never all that interested in that subject back at the Academy, so I don't really know just how accurate my explanation might be." He looked down at John still seated in the dirt. "Oh just open the watch, John. What do you have to lose?"

"I…"

"If I'm wrong, you'll stay as you are – the human man." He winked. "But if I'm right? Imagine the possibilities."

John looked down at the watch in his hand and considered the Doctor's words. He winced lightly in indecision as to whether or not to blindly go ahead and take the chance. If it were true, and that he'd changed himself into a human man, then why did he do it? Why would he have done such a thing; as an experiment? To hide? In shame?

He looked up to the Doctor with a pleading look. "Just tell me one thing, Doctor. As a Time Lord. Am I a good man?"

"That question depends entirely on who you ask, doesn't it?"

"Rose. Does Rose think I'm a good man?"

"She married that man, John," he answered with a smile of urging. "And she loves him … so much."

There was a click, and John Smith erupted into light.


	42. I didn't do it

A/N: Special chapter, really. Dedicated to Ten explaining to Four that he didn't do it. I'm with ChocolateQueen in that I'm the kind of person who will put up a hand mid accusation and flat out state that I didn't do it ... I won't even let the accusation halfway leave someone's mouth... Nope. Learned that lesson in my early twenties when I became a victim of rumours and lies of such voracity that would make a Hollywood actor/actress shudder... Since then... nope! Like a sniper ninja tiger warrior I am ... snarl...

Ahem ...

Anyhow. It had to be cleared up ... so I cleared it up... :)

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor leaned up against the doorframe of the TARDIS to watch the transformation of John Smith to – he hoped – his Tenth self. He marvelled somewhat in the bright and explosive energies of the change; of the flaming glory of it that peaked and fell in a glittering snowfall of energy. It seemed a much more violent change than any of his regenerations, especially if the agonized cry coming from within the ball of light was any indication.

Part of him felt slightly smug at the idea he seemed to be going through so much pain. Serve the old boy right. The other part of him, however, was aghast. _This_ was going to be _him_ in a half dozen regenerations…

…Rassilon help him.

The screaming inside the ball of light quickly tapered out to rapid panting as the light itself started to dim. There was an almighty gasp, and the man inside the energy staggered backward. It took a moment for him to fully get his bearings, and then he shook his head, his shoulders, and then let that shudder course through the rest of him as he wet his tongue, swallowed and let out a breath of exclamation.

"Phew! What a rush!" He began a walk to the door of the TARDIS, but stumbled slightly on his feet. His eyes shot up to the Doctor standing in the doorway. "Regenerations … piece of cake. Easy-peasy compared to _that._ "

The Doctor let his mouth twist in a smile at the breathless and exhausted delivery of the statement. "Welcome ba…"

"No!" Ten spluttered quickly as his hand shot up to stop him from speaking. "No no no. Wait. Tsh tsh tsh tsh tsh." He opened up the jacket he was wearing and fumbled with his hands over his bare chest. With his lips still hissing for quiet, he finally pressed a hand either side of his chest and held his breath. His head nodded slowly as he concentrated on the sensation underneath his palms. In no time at all his face broke out into a wide and relived smile and he exhaled in relief. "Two hearts. Yes. Thank Rassilon for that." He strode past the Doctor with only a snap of his fingers to request that he follow. "I don't know how these humans do it. Survive, I mean, with such a primitive a circulatory system. One heart, really." He looked back to the Doctor and pointed in his direction as he continued to walk to the console of the TARDIS. "You would think that evolution might have given them a second one by now, _what_ , with their apparent instinctual desire to _break_ the hearts of themselves and each other." He shrugged off the jacket and threw it on the jumpseat. "Break this one," he half cheered to himself as he punched at his left heart. "Never mind, I've got another."

"And they say I talk nonsense," Four muttered to himself, but in a voice deliberately loud enough to be heard. "It doesn't matter if _you_ are a Time Lord of Human, you still give me` a headache."

Ten let a giggle bubble in the back of his throat and grinned widely as he twisted a dial on the console in front of him. "Just testing out the jaw, Scarf. It's been, oh, a couple of months since I got to let the gob run." He waggled his brow. "Give it a bit of exercise, stretch out the muscles a bit." His voice quietened a little as he focused on the readout on the monitor. "Make sure I can still prattle on if the fancy takes me."

"The fancy still hits, then?"

"Oh," Ten said with a chuckle. "That fancy has always hit. No matter what incarnation, the sound of my own voice is still one of my favourite sounds." He looked curiously at the monitor and the fast delivery of his words suddenly slowed. "I expect that it always will be."

Four narrowed his eyes at the furrow in Ten's brow and leaned to the side in order to look over his shoulder. "Is there a problem."

Ten stood up straight and folded his arms across his chest. "Slightly. I think the old girl might be a little mad at me. Although I can't possibly fathom why." He tapped his slipper-clad toes on the grating and glared at the monitor. "This was as much your idea as it was mine, TARDIS. So don't you go about throwing a tantrum at me and being all put out because you haven't been getting any of my attention these past few weeks."

Four chuckled lightly. "What are you asking her to do?"

"To show me where Gallifrey's hiding out, of course," he huffed. "She's refusing to tell me."

"Which is quite likely because you're the one he was running from in the first place," Four supplied cruelly. "Just however far you were into whatever he caught you doing, it upset him greatly." He let out a displeased breath as he folded his arms across his chest and dropped his eyes down to his shorter incarnation. "Gallifrey took off because of what he saw, Doctor."

"Do you think I don't remember," Ten snarled through his teeth. "I've lived through that particular encounter twice now. Twice I've had to hear son tell me he hates me before he runs away from me – all because of one stupid … _stupid …_ misunderstanding."

Four ground at his teeth a moment. He harshly raked his eyes up and down his Tenth self, who stood at the console in just his pyjama bottoms and his slippers. "How far did you take it?" he ground out uncomfortably.

Ten slowly turned his head to look down his shoulder at Four. " _I_ didn't take it anywhere."

"Appearances do suggest otherwise," Four countered severely. "How _human_ were you?"

"Not _that_ human," he snapped in return. His mind supplied him with a litany of aggressive retorts and insults to continue, and he was tempted to let it all spew out, but he instead shut his mouth, lowered his head and let out a breath. He could hear in the hitch of Four's breath that he was about to speak, and so raised his hand to stop him. "Just a second."

"One second has passed."

Ten had to let out a short laugh at that. He raised his head and looked at his younger self with a closed expression. "I did nothing," he said quietly. He left it at that for approximately one second before he suddenly inhaled a desperately deep breath and opened his expression back up. " _Well_ , not nothing as in nothing at all, because I did _something._ " He tilted his head slightly and scratched at his sideburn . "And, of course, what I did do was ignored by Miss Redfern and definitely misinterpreted by my son."

"Rassilon, man, will you get to the point?"

"I pushed her away," Ten answered smoothly.

"You did, did you?"

"Not that it looked like it from Gallifrey's standpoint, mind," Ten continued. "Joan was on top on me on the bed, and was rather aggressive in her advances. Quite persistent in fact." He shrugged and shook his head. "Not that I don't understand the reasons for her attraction, of course. I am rather…" he looked for his tie to adjust it and grin, but ended up frowning at the absence of it. "Oh. Yes. That's right."

Four growled low. "Seven hundred and fifty years."

Ten quickly fired him a look of question. "Pardon me?"

"I've been alive for more than seven and a half centuries, Doctor."

"Yes?"

"And in that Seven hundred and fifty years, I've spent more than five centuries traveling throughout all of time and space. I've had many, many wonderful companions and have come across many many fascinating creatures. Some of them beautifully humanoid, some android, some of them with multiple arms and legs and some with none at all."

Ten narrowed his eyes. "Are we nearing your point any time soon? Because I'm pretty sure you have one, yes?"

"My point is," Four snapped. "That not once in that five centuries did I put myself in a situation where I would end up being forced to canoodle. I never experienced a desire to even do so."

Ten's lip lifted in time with a curl of his brow and he rubbed at the back of his neck as he turned back to the monitor. "No. You didn't." He widened his eyes and tipped his head to one side. " _I_ didn't. No time for that kind of nonsense." He pursed his lips and blew out a breath. "Meeting Rose kind've blew that attitude out of the water, though, didn't it? And then, well, then you regenerate into me, and suddenly everyone wants a taste."

"And just how much of a _taste_ did this Redfern woman get?"

"No," he growled aggressively. He then panted a couple of breaths and calmed himself as he looked toward his younger self. "No. No. No. No no no," he peppered out with a laugh. "I'm not getting into this with you. I pushed her away, Doctor, that's all you need to know." His look became one of challenge. "And one day, you're going to do the same thing and make this same explanation."

Four stared a hard look at his older self for a long moment.

Ten grinned. "Oh, and that look of vehemence that you'll never put yourself in this position absolutely takes the sting out of it. Because you know what?" His grin fell. "I made the same vow when I was you. And look at me now."

The breath that exhaled out of Four's nose was a long sound of annoyance. "I'm going to retrieve Gallifrey. You might want to reclaim some slight sense of dignity and put some clothes on."

Ten watched with a knitted brow as Four walked to the door that led toward the main residential corridors. "We don't yet know where he is."

"Answer's obvious," Four muttered. "He's likely in his bedroom, in the dark, underneath his blankets." He turned his head back to Ten. "I'll assume you left his bedroom in its original location."

"Across from mine, yes."

He tipped his head in a facetious bow of appreciation. "Thank you. Now if you'll excuse me."

"Yeah," Ten breathed with annoyance. "Did _that_ the day I met you," he inhaled and looked back up to the monitor. His annoyance flew out of him with a breath and he smiled at the monitor. "Now, old girl. You and I both know that little Gallifrey isn't his room right now." He tapped deliberately at the keyboard under the monitor. "Didn't find him there when I went looking two and a bit centuries ago, and I dare guess he's not going to find him there this time around. So how about you show me where you're hiding my little boy."

The column pulsed with a reply in the negative.

"Oh come now," he pleaded with a smile. "Why are you denying me? Are you jealous?" He petted the column with a stroke of his palm. "You have no need to be jealous."

If a TARDIS was capable of an indignant huff, she likely would've given one. Instead, she powered down her console somewhat as though settling into a comfy couch for a movie night and a cuddle. Her hum was like a continual sigh of contentment.

The Doctor had never quite heard anything like it before. He looked at her rotor column with suspicion. "Are you feeling okay there, old girl? Is there something you and I need to talk about, maybe?"

He heard the smallest of whimpers, a sniff, and then the rustle of thick fabric coming from the underneath of the console. He stilled and waited for the sound again, and was rewarded with the sound of a tiny little sigh.

With a curled brow, the Doctor slowly lowered himself in a crouch beside the console. His breath shuddered out of him as he captured the image of his little boy curled up and asleep in a tight cocoon inside his tan jacket with nothing but his freckled little face and a little tuft of his chestnut mane peeking out. The way that Gallifrey had tucked himself into the smallest little pocket underneath the console, and the dried tear streaks on his dusty little face shattered the Doctor's hearts so completely that he could hear the tinkle of each piece falling inside his chest.

"Oh, Gal."

Gallifrey whimpered something in his sleep. He nestled tighter into the jacket and let out a contented sigh as he dug himself deeper into the cubbyhole.

The Doctor had to let out a small chuckle. "Well. At least I know now why you're acting off, old girl." He dropped down onto his knees and reached in to pull Gallifrey from his hiding place. He let out a startled yelp to receive the mental equivalent of a sharp smack of fingers on the back of his hand. He pulled back sharply and looked up to the console.

"What in Arcadia are you playing at? I'm not trying to hurt him. I'm trying to make sure that he's okay." He sighed, shook his head and ducked back into the cubby hole. "Don't make me tell Rose that you prevented me tending to her little boy, because trust me. I will." He flicked his eyes up to the underneath of the console in warning. "Have you ever felt the wrath of a Tyler woman, TARDIS? No? I have. And let me tell you, they can slap." He was able to reach out and touch at the shoulder of his child, and while he _really_ wanted to comment on his ship possibly fearing Rose and her wrath, he chose not to. Instead he lightly shushed out a soothing sound as he slid his fingers and hands underneath Gallifrey's shoulder.

Gallifrey out a mumble, which froze the Doctor in place.

"Back to sleep little flubble," the Doctor cooed in a whisper. "It's just me: Dad. No need to worry."

A little hand emerged from underneath the jacket and it half curled into a fist that Gallifrey used to rub at his eyes, at his nose, then to cover a wide yawn that cracked at his little jaw and ended with a small sighing moan. The Doctor noted with horror the array of cuts, scrapes and bruises on that little palm and looked up again at the underneath of the console.

"He's hurt. Make sure the Med Bay's close." He thought on it a moment. "And make sure my younger self gets lost, will you? I don't need him sniffing over my shoulder issuing guilt snorts while I'm trying to fix him up."

Gallifrey mumbled again, and the Doctor immediately froze again. "It's okay, Gal. Back to sleep. Tsh tsh sh sh sh."

Gallifrey mumbled and rolled in his sleep. He clutched onto the jacket as though it was his comforter, and clutched it around him tight as he pulled his legs into his chest once more. He settled with another sigh.

"Well," the Doctor whispered with a smile at the sight of Galifrey's back. "At least this makes it easier to get you out of there." He double checked the enclosure and quickly examined the best method by which to extricate him without waking him. "Or how about you try sleep walking? Oh, wouldn't that he helpful to your old man, then?"

The Doctor slid his arms underneath Gallifrey's side and gently coaxed him to roll his back up against his chest. He juggled him lightly as he backed out of the cubby hole on his knees, but was able to pull the young boy up firmly against his chest as he levered himself to a stand. He only made it about three steps across the grating and toward the doorway to the corridor before he dared look down at the young boy cradled in his arms.

Although he'd met Gallifrey in a previous incarnation and had gotten to know his youngster throughout the centuries and incarnations with visits across time, and even through he'd even seen his boy as an adult with a wife of his own, it was this moment; this one moment; that hit it all into him at once.

This little boy, this brilliant little boy with his freckled face, wild brown hair, wonky ears and an endlessly running gob … was _his_. _He_ was this child's father. _He_ was the incarnation that had conceived and created this blessed youngster.

"My son," he whispered with reverent sorrow at the lost time between them. "My beautiful son."

Gallifrey's eyes tightened a moment and he slapped his mouth a couple of times. He gave a tiny yawn and slowly blinked opened his eyes. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn't lying in his hidey-hole in the TARDIS, nor was he in a bed. He was pressed up against a chest that bore the blue bonding pendant worn by his father. With a furrow in his brow he tiredly rolled his head backward to look up a the man who was looking down at him.

He gave a gasp at seeing brown rather than the blue eyes he'd been accustomed to seeing, and realized that he was in the arms of Mr. Smith, and not this Doctor. He stiffened in preparation to struggle out of his hold, but was stilled by the heartbroken whisper of his name.

Gallifrey tipped his head to one side as his face fell into a frown of concentration. He looked up into Mr. Smith's eyes, and even raised his head a little in order to look just that little bit closer. Behind the chocolate darkness of John Smith's eyes lay the universe and all its wonders. He saw the ancient heartbreak and sorrow, and a millennium of thrill and adventure.

More than all that though, Gallifrey Tyler saw his dad.

He cautiously raised his hand to touch his fingertips against the Doctor's cheekbone. It was a hesitant and timid voice of question that asked for a universe of answers inside a single three-letter-word question.

"Dad?"

All the Doctor could do in response was to press his lips together tightly and give a nod.

The tender touch of Gallifrey's fingertips turned into a press of fingers against his cheek. The press shifted to a pinch of his cheek between little fingers. The young boy sniffed a tear, but smiled a wide smile. "You've got my face."

The Doctor choked out a couple of laughs. "Actually, I think you have mine."

"Is it really you," he queried in a voice filled with hope. "And I mean the Time Lord you, not the human you who just thinks that he's my dad." He gasped just in case. "Not that I don't like him, Mr. Smith. Because I do. He's nice and all, but he's not my Time Lord Dad, and I really want my Time Lord dad back." He flopped just a little bit in the Doctor's arms. "God, that makes it sound like I don't like my _current_ Time Lord dad, doesn't it? And that's just not true at all, because he's great, the greatest! He's my dad, so he has to be, but then so are you…"

"Gallifrey…"

"That is, if you are _you_ , which would be great. Oh imagine that, two really awesome dads here with me _."_ He grinned and nestled into the Doctor's hold, content to talk up to him. "Hard to believe that I didn't have that, you know, a month and a bit ago, which was actually only a week here on Earth, Just a week. Well, we squished a whole month into twelve hours if you can believe that … all because of some wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Gal," the Doctor interrupted gently with a light jostle of his child against his chest.

Gallifrey blinked up at him with an air of complete innocence. "Yeah?"

The Doctor broke out into a wide grin that betrayed the sadness of the tears in his eyes. "Hello."

Gallifrey grinned a brilliant smile up into his father's face. "Hi."

The Doctor's smile started to falter and his voice started to break. "I've missed you."

Gallifrey wriggled in the Doctor's arms and managed to manoeuvre himself enough to be able to jump up and throw his arms around his father's neck. He gave him a sloppy kiss on his cheek. "Missed you, too, Dad. Every day of my life."

The remaining resolve of the Doctor fell completely at those words. With a great gulping sob he clutched onto his child and fell to his knees. He begged for a world of forgiveness from his little boy with six words … just six.

"I'm sorry, Gallifrey. I'm so sorry."


	43. Dermal Regeneration

A/N: Apologies for no chapter yesterday. I started this chapter and found it so incredibly difficult to write it that I almost gave up about four times. So many ways to take it, and so much that could potentially go wrong. I struggled hard to try and make this make sense and clear up some stuff...

I think I pulled it off ... going for some fluff next chapter ... need it ...

Ten might be a bit of a sap at the end there, and I make no apologies AT ALL for that. None. Nada... hahahah...

~~oooOOOooo~~

Gallifrey looked up and around the medical bay of the TARDIS with wide eyes of pure wonderment. This was the first time he'd seen the Medical bay in _this_ capsule. He'd seen the one in his _other dad's_ TARDIS once or twice. He dipped his little head guiltily. Maybe three or four times if he and his dad were to be completely honest with his mother.

…But, hey. If his dad could deal with the boo-boo without having to notify his mother, then why did he have to tell her about it and worry her for nothing?. She didn't have to know about _every little misadventure_ , now, did she?

This Medical bay was much, much different to the one on the younger TARDIS. This room had two gurneys lined side-by-side and spaced at least four-feet apart. There was no dividing curtain between beds, so no privacy at all between Doctor and patient – pardon the pun – and the walls were lined with cabinets and what Gallifrey could determine was hi-tech diagnostic equipment that he should probably never ever ever touch.

The other TARDIS, well, her medical bay may as well have been an entire hospital wing for all the beds and privacy curtains that she had. Depending on the gurney that was closest, the Doctor had to push his way through quite a few annoying blue-green curtains to get what he needed from old wooden cabinets.

"This," he vocalised unintentionally, "is different."

The Doctor rubbed his thumb along Gallifrey's newly dermally regenerated left palm and reached for the other hand. "I've done this for you before."

Gallifrey looked to his father, but only saw the top of his head as he worked on the other hand. "Yeah. No. I didn't mean this." He wriggled his fingers. "I mean the med bay."

The Doctor looked up at the room around him. He looked left and then right, and even up and down, but his eyes didn't meet the brown eyes of his child. He looked back down to his task. "The original layout was cluttered and ineffective. This is more efficient."

"Uh-huh," Gallifrey breathed through an open mouth as his brows dropped into a frown. "Efficient is good." He looked up. "Very good."

The Doctor finished up with Gallifrey's left hand and gave a frown as he looked down to the youngster's knees. "I need you to remove your trousers. I'll go grab you a towel so you can cover up a bit."

"I've got pants on," Gallifrey suggested as he ducked and weaved his little head to try and put himself in his father's line of sight. "Boxer briefs, Batman ones, so I'm basically wearing shorts. Black shorts with the batman logo in yellow all over them." He chuckled cheekily as he grabbed at the waistband of his trousers and wriggled his butt to pull them off his hips. He lay his back down and lifted his bum as he pushed at his trousers. His voice was slightly garbled as he spoke over a constricted throat. "Never wore briefs, me. Mum doesn't like them. She put me in Boxers before I was even out of nappies – which wasn't very old, mind. I was fully toilet trained at thirteen months. That's really early, yeah?"

Gallifrey finally kicked his trousers to his ankles and then groaned when they caught on his converse. He gave a grunt as he pulled at the leg to try and force them off and then cheered as they finally gave way. With a cheer of victory he let them fall off the edge of the gurney. "Oh, but of course she could never find boxer briefs that would actually fit my tiny little butt, so they were always more like boxers." He leaned in close and spoke in low conspiratorial tones. "Not a fan of boxers, just sayin. That level of freedom? No thanks. I like everything all snug as a bug in a rug." He then lay back on the gurney with his hands behind his head. "Snug as a bug in a rug. Odd saying that. Are bugs really snug if they get caught up in a rug"

The Doctor sniffed as he listened to the babble of his son. He may have appeared distracted as he curled his hand underneath a knobbly little knee, but he was listening to every word that his child was saying.

Gallifrey rolled his head on his hands to look at his father tending to his knee. "Whatdya think, Dad? Are bugs snug in a rug?"

"I'm really not sure, Gal."

"No?"

"There are quite a few factors involved in answering that one with any real substance," he answered around a small device he'd set between his teeth. He took the device out of his mouth and held it down against Gallifrey's grazed knee. "Generally speaking and without coming across as whimsical…"

"What if I _want_ whimsical," he interrupted to query with a small voice. "Something creative and fun, you know?"

"Then don't ask a Time Lord."

Gallifrey deflated fully with a long exhale. "Oh. Okay." He pulled his hand from behind his head and used them to wrap his arms around his head. He could feel the tenderness of the Doctor's touch as he tended to the grazes. He could also feel the slight shudder in his hand as he worked. Shutting off his vision also heightened the young lad's hearing, and he could hear the shake in the Doctor's exhales with each breath that passed through his parted lips.

He wondered a moment if his dad was disappointed in him or mad at him because he'd done something wrong. Well. _Okay_. He _had_ told him that he hated him and then run off into the night. But he had good reason. He did. He walked in on something no child should ever see. Well. Okay. Maybe if he'd knocked first, then he could've been saved that sight, but that was beside the point. He shouldn't have been in that woman's bed in the first place! Or. She shouldn't have been in _his_.

Semantics…

Fact still remained. His dad. In bed. With a woman who wasn't his mum.

And _he_ was disappointed in _him_? Why? Because he reacted to it the way any kid would react to something like _that_? How _dare_ he?

Gallifrey drummed his fingers on his elbows as he continued to hide underneath his forearms. He could feel anger and hurt ripple and grow heatedly inside his belly.

Eight years – well more than that considering he was born about four months after he and his mum got trapped in the other world – so more than eight years. Eight years of running and hiding and fighting and crying and being alone. Not once. Not once did his mum give up on the Doctor. She never once sought the attentions of another suitor, despite the offers. No. It was too dangerous for her to let anyone else in. His unique biology and the constant threat of being taken in the night meant that the only man allowed in her life was _him_. She gave it all up – gave everything - for a freckled face little streak of trouble fathered by a man who gave up on _them_.

Oh and just how long had it been for him, then? Same time? Less? More?

A whisper of _thirteen months_ lapped at the edge of his consciousness, but Gallifrey rudely shoved it out of his mind. Thirteen months was too pitiful an amount of time to accept that his father had given up on them completely and moved on. Oh, and hadn't he moved on, then? New companion, new girlfriend …

And _he_ had the _nerve_ to be upset with _him_?

Was he such a disappointment to the mighty Time Lord that he'd be upset that he and his mum had defied every impossible odd and returned? He should be proud that his progeny had been so clever to have found a way back to the prime universe, not mad and upset at it.

"Is that what you think?"

Gallifrey's breath stilled at the tiny voice that came from his knees. His thoughts had numbed him to the fact that the gentle grasp of his knee had stilled and tightened. Surely he didn't just voice his thoughts…

"You were projecting," The Doctor said quietly.

…Touch telepath. Righhhht.

He tightened the hold of his forearm across his eyes and licked at his dried lips as he planned a hasty escape. "Am I all fixed up, then? Can I go find my mum?"

There was a wet clearing of the Doctor's throat, and the hold on his knee fell off completely. "Yes. All done. Good as new. Well. It is new, really. New skin covering the old. Quite a marvel is this new dermal regenerator." He held it up to admire it. "A bit more advanced that the one I used to use on you back in my fourth. Picked it up a century ago on…"

"Right," Gallifrey interrupted with a rush of breath. "Then now that I'm good as new, I'll get changed and go find my mum. Surely she's out of her mind with panic by now, and considering she doesn't do panic real well … at least not where I'm concerned… I should find her. Bit of a worry wart, Mum. Not that I can really blame her. Just she and me and all, you know." He turned on his backside with the intention to slide off the bed, but was caught by the Doctor's hand at his knee. "Sorry. Didn't mean to kick you. Unintentional…"

"Gallifrey," the Doctor choked on a broken voice. "Wait."

"I really don't have the time," Gallifrey countered meekly. "Mum's waiting for me. Probably freaking out and wondering if I have all my body parts, which I'm pretty lucky that I do given what just happened." He looked up into his father's eyes to elaborate, but instead gasped at the incredible depth of sadness he saw within them. He panted in the quiet for a handful of breaths and then reached forward to touch his fingers to the Doctor's hand. "Please don't be mad at me, Doctor. I didn't mean to be a bother to you. I really didn't."

The Doctor didn't know which part of all that hurt him the most, but he was going to focus on the fact that his child had referred to him as _Doctor_ instead of _dad_ , which he had never failed to do since the very moment they'd met in his fourth incarnation.

It hit him hard in both his hearts, and he impulsively reached for Gallifrey's hands. "I'm not mad at you, Gal."

Gallifrey's breaths drew in hard as he contemplated the only other option. Immediately his eyes filled with tears. "You. You're disappointed, then?" He breathed jagged breaths. "Be angry at me with me as much as you want. But please, please, please don't be disappointed in me. Please. I'm doing the best I can."

The sudden expression of total devastation in Gallifrey's entire body had the Doctor drop his son's hands and reach out to him immediately. He grabbed at his little arms, hauled him up against his chest and then locked his arms around the young boy's shoulders. He chanted a string of: No no no no no, and dropped his nose into Gallifrey's hair. Rassilon no. He was not mad or disappointed in that brilliant child. He was horribly disappointed in himself, so very mad at himself, but not at Gallifrey. Never at Gallifrey.

"I am not disappointed in you, Gal. Never." He inhaled deeply the scent of his child, all dust and bubble bath and the winds of the mountains of Gallifrey. "I am proud of you. So very proud of you."

"Then why aren't you talking to me," he whimpered wetly against his father's bare chest. "Mum says your gob is worse than mine, and you've hardly said a word to me." He sniffed and wiped his eyes on the Doctor's chest. "I know you didn't expect us to just show up like this, and it wasn't intentional. It's just that the Dimensional Warp and Wormhole Manipulator I made wasn't really ready when I activated it and…"

"That's what you called it?"

"What?"

"The device you used to jump back into this universe. That's what you called it?"

Gallifrey sniffed and backed out of the Doctor's hold. He curled his hand into a fist and nodded as he rubbed at his eye. "Uh-huh. I had originally added _that Dings_ at the end of it, but I couldn't get it to _ding_ like I wanted it to, so I couldn't. So I guess I wasn't really as clever as I thought I was, because if I can't get something to _ding_ , which is pretty rudimentary stuff, then I'm not really _that_ clever at all, am I?"

"I think you're brilliant," the Doctor said with a smile. "Absolutely brilliant." His smile fell into a line of thought. "And don't feel defeated by not getting something to _ding_ to your liking. I've been at it for centuries now and I still have issues sometimes with the _ding_." He huffed and looked to the ceiling of the med bay. "It makes me wonder why I'm so obsessed with the whole ding and making it work, because _really_ the ding isn't exactly what you're trying to achieve now, is it? It's just the icing on the cake…"

"Banana flavoured icing," Gallifrey added with a slight drool. "Yum."

"Oh yes," the Doctor cheered with a grin. "Yum with a capital Y." He leaned in toward Gallifrey. "And have you ever combined chocolate _and_ banana?"

Gallifrey's eyes opened wide. "No…"

"Oh, my boy, then we mustn't waste time talking about it. We must make this combination happen. Immediately." He snatched his hand and pulled him to the edge of the gurney. "Come on, Gallifrey Tyler, let's go dip some bananas in some melted chocolate and enjoy the decadence as we really get ourselves all messy and dirty."

Gallifrey let his legs swing over the side of the gurney, but didn't allow the Doctor to pull him all the way down to the floor. He shook his head at the tug of urging on his hands.

The Doctor frowned and poked out his lower lip in a slight pout. "Come on. Let's go. The Banana dips aren't going to make themselves." He frowned at himself. "Well. TARDIS might make some for us if we don't, but that really does take the whole fun out of it."

"Dad?"

The Doctor grinned widely and lifted his eyes to Gallifrey's. "Yes?" His smile fell at the serious look on the child's face. "Not a fan of Bananas and chocolate?"

"Mum told me that you're good at this, you know."

"At creating culinary combinations? Why, my boy, of course I am. I'm brilliant at it." He let one side of his mouth curl into a rueful smile. "But I'm going to assume that you're not talking about that."

Gallifrey shook his head. "Nope." He inhaled deep. "King of Deflection. That's what mum calls you."

"I see." He exhaled a long breath and tapped at Gallifrey's leg to direct him to shift over a little. When he had to room to do so, he climbed up onto the gurney beside his son. They sat side by side for a moment in silence while the Doctor thought over the past few days, weeks, and then months since his wife and child had been so cruelly ripped from him. His mind then shifted to the moments since Rose and Gallifrey had come back into his life, and to the attachment that his human self had held for Joan Redfern, and then ultimately Gallifrey walking into the bedroom.

He fought back the urge to retch.

"Do you love her, Dad?"

The Doctor dropped his head down to look into Gallifrey's questioning gaze. "Who; Joan?" He pressed his lips together and shook his head. "No. No I don't."

"As a human, did you?"

Again the Doctor shook his head. "No. I had feelings for her, I suppose, but it wasn't love."

Gallifrey looked confused. "Then what was it?"

"Curiosity?"

Gallifrey frowned a tight grimace and let out a hard breath. "It had to be more than that. You don't kiss girls if you don't love them, and you certainly don't try to have sex with them."

The Doctor shuddered. "One. Please don't ever say that word again. It doesn't sound in any way near right for an eight year old to say it. Two. I didn't kiss her, she kissed me. Three." He looked back down to Gallfrey and his voice softened. "Three. What you saw, Gallifrey, wasn't me engaging in any activity that was going to lead me into having relations of that nature with Miss Redfern…"

"But…"

He held up a finger. "What you saw was me trying to push her away and stop it." He lifted a hand to cup at Gallifrey's cheek and drew his thumb along the tender skin underneath his eye. "I'd only just realized who you and your mum truly were to me, Gal. I was determined to fight for you both and have you both back in my life."

His eyes twitched in confusion. "I don't understand. Did you remember that you were a Time Lord?"

He shook his head. "Well. No."

"Oh. So you remembered that you and mum were in love and she got torn away from you during a Dalek invasion?"

"Again no."

"So. So? So." Gallifrey frowned. "Then how could you know who mum and me were, then? If you weren't you and you don't remember being you, then how could you possibly know? Were we part of your story?"

The Doctor looked at his child a moment and then slipped his hands into his. "Let me show you," he offered quietly as he lifted Gallifrey's hands to his temples and gently guided them into position. "I know that my fourth self has only given you a few lessons in how to use your telepathy, but I think you're good enough to be able to do this without ripping my brain out of my head."

Gallifrey bit at his lip and swallowed hard. "What if I break you?"

The Doctor chuckled. "You won't break me," he assured him. "I'll push you out before you can do any rewiring in there." He felt Gallifrey's fingers lightly press against his temples. "Now. Close your eyes and reach for me, Son. I'm waiting for you."

"Contact," Gallifrey breathed in question.

"Contact," the Doctor whispered in response as he felt the little tap at the very edge of his consciousness. "Time to see your Dad for who he is, Gal. No secrets."

Gallifrey giggled lightly. "Feel free to shield me from _some_ things. Like the squicky things. Things with you and mum that resulted in me."

"I'll put them behind a big door with about twenty padlocks on it and a large _do not enter_ sign and police tape." He shuddered as he felt the warmth of Gallifrey's presence enter his mind. "Hello my son."

"Hi Dad."

The Doctor immediately opened his mind and memories to the tiny little figure in a crimson tunic, black and yellow Batman boxer briefs and white Converse shoes. He let him walk among the memories of the thrill and joy of discovering his conception, and of the terror the Doctor felt knowing that he would soon lose them. He showed the endless nights of working at the TARDIS console to try and prevent it happening, to see if there was anyway of breaking the consistency of the causal loop so that he wouldn't have to lose them. He showed him his absolute devastation when they were taken from him, and then his determination to fight against time, the universe, and all of her constraints in order to get them back. He let him see the days that turned into weeks that turned into months of no sleep and no progress in finding a way to reclaim his family. Even with a new companion on board the TARDIS, his search never ended. Every night as she slept, he picked up where he'd left off the previous night. He didn't give up. Not once. Not until the day that he and Martha ran into the TARDIS and he was faced with the moment he had to turn himself human.

He hadn't known when that time would come, but when it did – despite all of the trouble and panic and worry of the moment – he knew he'd get his family back.

"I never gave up on finding the two of you," he assured as Gallifrey kept wandering with rapt fascination through every memory available to him. "Even if, ultimately, I knew it would come. I couldn't wait. I didn't want to wait."

Gallifrey stood silent watching the memory of the coupling in his quarters, and the emotions his father felt as he pushed the woman away from him.

"You really, really believed you were my dad," Gallifrey said with a gasp as he opened his eyes and gently severed the connection between them. He let his hands fall and stared into the Doctor's reddened eyes. "Even as a human, you knew."

The Doctor smiled. "I guess the bond between father and son is stronger than a simple change of species, yeah?"

Gallifrey grinned cheekily. "Or I'm just that brilliant that I shatter any barriers and just rip on through."

The Doctor had to laugh at that as he hooked an arm around Gallifrey's shoulder and pulled him against his chest in a tight embrace. "You know something. I think you're right."

"I know I am," he mumbled against his chest. "I'm the Doctor's son."

He held him that little bit tighter. "That you are, little flubble." He kissed the top of his head. "I love you, Gal. Don't forget that. Ever. Never ever ever."

"I won't," Gallifrey replied. "But can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

Gallifrey chuckled. "Not that I want you to think I don't like cuddles and all, because I do. I'm a cuddler. Always have been, and I reckon I always will be. But if snuggles are gonna happen, don't you think it might be a good idea for you to put some clothes on?"


	44. Two Time Lords and a Time Tot

A/N: Oh, I was all set to write the reunion of Ten and Rose ... and then I remembered with a gasp of horror that there was something else that had to get put in there first. Namely the fact that Ten knows Joan is possessed/taken over/whatever it is. He's not going to shove that idea aside and forget about it ... So that said. Had to get some stuff out of the way first before I can do the good stuff ... AGAIN ... Next chapter, I promise...

~~oooOOOooo~~

With his brown pinstripe trousers still undone, but pulled up over his backside, the Doctor Ten walked into the room that had remained untouched since this day almost two hundred and fifty years earlier. His tie hung from his teeth and his blazer hung perilously off his shoulder as he walked and tucked in his Oxford. He noticed his fourth self leaning with his head against the doorframe as he approached the room.

"I see you found it okay," he managed around the tie still in his teeth as he did his final hand sweep down the back of his trousers to ensure his Oxford was smoothly in place. "Still the same as he left it."

"With the book we were reading still open to the chapter we stopped at on the side table," he answered on a quiet voice. He kept his eyes on the open book – a text on the provenance of the Gallifreyan Culture. "This will be the last time I enter this room, won't it?"

Ten fastened his trousers and slipped the loop of his tie over his head. "You know I can't tell you that."

"No," he huffed with frustration. "You can't tell me if I'm going to fulfil the prophesy of whether or not I destroy Gallifrey. You can't tell me if a black hole opens up and swallows half of Kasterborous. You can't tell me something that'll influence me to change my own personal timeline or change a fixed point." He looked toward his Tenth self. "But you can sure as Rassilon tell me if I lose my wife and child tonight and become too much of a coward to bring myself to this door."

Ten slid his arms into the sleeves of his blazer and tightened the knot of his tie into place at his throat before fastening any buttons. He used those long moments of distraction to think back on this night almost two hundred and fifty years ago. He sighed as he slipped the top button of his blazer through its designated hole.

"No," he answered carefully. "You don't come back in here after tonight." He dipped his head. " _Well_ , no. That's not entirely accurate. You do stand in the doorway on the odd occasion throughout the next couple of centuries. Not that it really qualifies as actually _entering_ the room as you won't ever cross the threshold, but. Full disclosure I suppose is only fair."

"So it all ends tonight, then?"

"I guess so."

Four gave Ten a sharp look. "What do you mean by _I guess so_? That's rather vague, don't you think?"

He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Yeah. It's all kind of vague to me as well. I'm going to guess that I suppressed a lot of what happens tonight. Anything that occurs between leaving the TARDIS tonight and kissing my wife and child goodbye to then hand them over to my older self when all this is over is all gone." He tapped at his temple. "Nothing in there to tell me what to do and where to go from here." He pressed his lips together a moment and let his dimples show as he worked his jaw a little. "Still. I end up with Gal and Rose at the end of it all, so we can safely assume that everything goes well."

"Assumption, of course, being the mother of all disasters."

"Of course," Ten agreed with a firm nod of his head. "But we are the Doctor: The protector _against_ disasters."

Four laughed. "Since when, Doctor? Typically disaster strikes _because_ of our presence."

"Well," he sang with a roll of his eyes. "Not always. Only sometimes, maybe. Some times more often than not, perhaps." He scratched at his sideburn. "Of course location is also key in determining whether or not this disaster-friendly reputation we hold is in any way accurate."

"We can safely agree that it is."

"We can also make sure that the only people who know that we've admitted such is you and I."

"And eleven other men," Four droned sardonically. He looked past Ten and down into the corridor. "where's Gallifrey?"

"10-0-11-00:02 from galactic zero centre…"

"Centre of Kasterborous, yes, Doctor, you are exceedingly clever."

"Exceedingly so, yes. I am, quite." Ten flicked his fingers as he walked into the bedroom and picked a couple of things up off the floor to put on a shelf. "You may we well come on in then. Gal's in the shower."

"Rose is not going to be happy that we've made her wait this long." He grinned a wide smile. "But as you've returned it'll be you who will have to face her wrath more than I."

"Oh," Ten sang with a smile. "If she issues a Tyler slap, it'll be felt across all incarnations, Doctor, so I wouldn't be so smug if I were you." He rubbed at his cheek. "We learn the hard way just how painful _that_ slap can be."

"You upset her?"

"Quite possibly many times throughout our time together." He frowned. "No. Not _possibly_. I've teetered on the edge of the slap more than once." He let his frown turn to a grimace. "But never enough to actually receive one." He raised his eyes to his younger self. "Her _mother_ on the other hand."

Four looked pained. "Her _mother_? Dear man, what did we do to earn a _mother_ slap, and do tell me that it is the first and only one we receive from a…" He winced. "A _mother_?"

"Not quite the only time. It does seem that I'm in at a stage of my lives where mothers don't generally like me too much."

"That could very well have something to do with all the canoodling you seem to be engaging in, no doubt."

"I'm a Time Lord. Time Lords don't canoodle, and I certainly don't _canoodle."_ He then frowned a wince of disgust. "And who says _canoodle_ anyway?"

"I do. And according to your companions – one being your wife – you have done your fair share of it."

"Response pending," Ten growled, "based on your interpretation of the word canoodle. Because if you are in any way suggesting that I've slept my way throughout all time and space when I am a _married_ Lord, then no. Absolutely not."

"Canoodle," Four said through his teeth. "To kiss and cuddle in an amorous fashion."

Ten rolled his eyes. "Okay. I may have kissed a lady or two, maybe three, inside of this regeneration." He frowned. "But never with any _amorous_ intentions."

"I'm of the mind to slap you myself, Doctor," Four muttered with a grunt. "Disgraceful behaviour."

"Anyway," Ten growled in a voice to suggest that the topic of _canoodling_ was well and truly over. He then sighed heavily as he circled his wrist in the air as he walked deeper into the room. "To head back to our original line of conversation regarding the issuance of the Tyler slap, I blame a faulty navigational circuit and my wibbly wobbly time sense going haywire …" He gave him a pained look. "In other words, I might've brought her home a little after curfew."

"How _late_ did you bring her back?"

"Oh, twelve months." He sighed. "I sent her back to her flat to see her mum while I flittered about the TARDIS, then noticed the _missing_ sign on the post." He winced. "And then we had a whole cascade of bad things occur that culminated in disaster for the human race." He grinned. "We ended up on Downing Street locked in the fortified cabinet room." He growled a low chuckle. "Oh, and if I didn't know that I already loved and hungered for that magnificent woman, I would've fallen at her feet and pledged my remaining regenerations to her for her bravery that day." He scratched at his hair and purred out a long groan. "She barely even knew me, yet she trusted me so implicitly. She was ready to give her life for the delusions of a mad Time Lord, before she even knew what I was planning. By Rassilon it was the most immediate and intense bond flaring moment of my lives."

Even Four had to shudder at that thought.

"Needless to say," he admitted with a sheepish rub at the back of his neck. "As soon as I got back to the TARDIS, I immediately sent a message to myself with an urgent request to see her and Gal."

Four's voice was little more than a peep. "And we agreed?"

"I've never been denied."

Four pursed his lips and nodded slowly. "Then do take care to remember the courtesies offered to you when I come calling for time with her."

"Yes, and you'll get your consent, albeit through gritted teeth and with some rather terse territorial warnings."

"And I'll likely ignore the warnings."

Ten had to laugh. "Since when have we ever actually heeded any?"

"What would be the fun in that," Four shot back with a wide grin. "Warnings are invitations, my good man. A gilded invitation to Lords like us who love nothing more than a good romp…"

"Romp? Does anyone even say _romp_ anymore?" Ten rolled his eyes, stepped away from his younger self and pointed his finger toward him. "And definitely don't be using _that_ term when we're talking about spending time my wife and child." He looked disgusted. "I'm not opposed to ignoring summons from my previous selves looking to _spend some time_ with my family."

"Speaking of," Four mused as he looked to the doorway. "Where is the little scamp?"

"The little _flubble,"_ Ten corrected, "shouldn't be too far off." He pointed to a watch on his wrist. "I told him no more than fifteen minutes, and we're four minutes and thirty seconds from that cutoff time."

"Good," Four muttered as he rubbed at his chin. "Then that should give us some time to discuss a couple of my concerns with you."

"I imagine you're asking about Bad Wolf," Ten breathed in response. "And the time energy signature she has .. when she _shouldn't_ have one at all."

"What happened to her?" Four's voice was quiet and concerned. "She shouldn't have that much vortex power inside her, not unless she stood in the heart of the vortex itself."

"I can't tell you," Ten answered quietly.

"When we were on Gallifrey, Brax did tests, but the results were inconclusive." He paused to swallow a worried lump. "How did this happen?"

"I really can't say anything," Ten reaffirmed quietly. He inhaled a deep breath and lifted guilty eyes toward his younger self. "But just know this. What she did, she did for us. To save _us_." He thought about that a moment. "Well. In the physical sense this time around, anyway. She'd already saved my spirit, soul, and shattered hearts before she inhaled the vortex."

Four looked completely aghast. "Rassilon, Doctor. What mess did we get into to have her do something as suicidal as that?"

"I can't tell you, Doctor," he answered firmly. He even held up a hand to prevent him pressing further. "Because I know without a doubt that you will work from here and until that day to stop it happening. I know. I've gone through the equations more than once since that day to see if there was anything else I could've done to prevent it." He winced a look of regret. "I thought I'd taken it all out of her. I did. I guess a Time Lord isn't capable of drawing off that much power." His brows lifted as his eyes widened. "Funny that a human can withstand Time energy better than a Time Lord can."

"If you had pushed yourself to regenerate, man, then no doubt you could've," Four challenged with a growl.

"I did," Ten seethed through his teeth. "I killed my former body and used up a regeneration for her. And on the tomb of Rassilon I swear I give up another one if it meant getting it all out of her."

"And you know that energy terrifies our child?"

"I was you once. I've had these conversations, so yes. I do know. I also know that without that energy, the both of them wouldn't have returned to this universe." He sighed. "There was a high chance that Rose would be dead and our son a tortured guinea pig for whatever scientist of the day wanted a play." He held open his arms. "So if I can deal with the constant fear of Bad Wolf returning and frying her mind completely if it means I have her and Gallifrey with me."

"Gallifrey has it too," Four advised gloomily. "I saw it tonight."

Ten nodded quickly. "Yeah." He continued to nod. "And don't worry. I'll figure out a way to protect them both." His head then shot up. "And speaking of protecting the two people we love most in this universe. Doctor, we've got trouble we should really deal with first.."

Four tilted his head to one side and frowned a light crinkle in the corner of his eyes. "Typically when you think there's trouble, there's a little glimmer of thrill. Right now that's absent, which is worrying."

"Yes. Well," Ten half sang. "We've got a family of aliens looking for a Time Lord meal." He flicked a hand to his Fourth self. "And we've certainly given them a plate full of them, haven't we?" He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets as his shoulders dipped backwards to inhale a deep breath. He continued to speak as he leaned forward into a stoop.. "Oh, no. Even better than that. We've given them a _menu_ , haven't we? A great big old Time Lord menu with Lords, Ladies and Tots."

"Breakfast, lunch and dinner," Four groused with a wince.

"Oh yes," Ten half cheered with a frustrated pitch in his voice. "I know the TARDIS picked up their ship's energy signature a day or so ago. We can be pretty much assured that they're assimilating now to track us down." He pursed his lips and rocked back slightly on his heels. "Well. If my encounter with Joan was anything to go by, then I'm going to suggest that she's been taken over."

Four's attention pricked at that. He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets as closed the distance between he and his older self and stood side on to him with an analytical look in his eyes. "What makes you think that?" His eyes narrowed slightly. "Something about the way she kissed you, Doctor?"

"You're really going to go with _that_ are you," he deadpanned blandly. The disgusted and darkened expression of Ten held a moment, and then melted away completely as his body straightened and he clapped his hands. He took a look around the room. "Right, then. Now that we've determined that we can distinguish between species by their manner of _kissing_ and have therefore also determined that Joan Redfern is no longer human, and is actually a member of the Family of Blood in disguise…"

"There is no need to be facetious," Four chipped with a curl in his lip. "Time Lords do not …"

"Oh don't you dare say that Time Lords aren't facetious," he challenged with a hard laugh. "And don't deny that you were going to go with that, because I was you once, and I stood in that exact same spot, wearing the exact same posture of indignance ready to sprout of the exact same excuse." He snorted with a roll of his eyes. "Please. Time Lords invented facetiousness."

"Tell me how you can be sure," Four growled. "Because I don't want to have to spend all of my focus on one person of _interest_ , when that person is only _of_ interest because you needed an excuse for acting like a cad." He let out a breath. "I don't want to take that chance, especially when my wife and child are involved."

Ten's expression fell into one of worry. "Which does bring up a good point. We've got to get Gallifrey clear of here before they catch onto his scent. If they catch the smell of a Time Tot, they'll stop at nothing to get to him." He lifted his eyes to Four's. "He and Rose. Find a way to get them clear of here and let me deal with what we've got here."

"You've met your wife and son, haven't you?"

"I've met them eight hundred and fourty three times in the last two hundred and fifty years." He pressed his lips together a moment. "Give or take a navigational blunder or two that meant I missed them, of course."

Four seemed quite shocked by that. "That many times?"

"So yes. I happen to know the two of them very well," he snapped.

"Which means you also have to know that there is no way in Arcadia that I will get our son to leave you now that he knows you're back."

"Do what it takes," Ten growled. "Get them clear of this nightmare and let me deal with it, because if they stay here and something happens to either one of them, I _will_ obliterate this planet and everyone on it. I'll then destroy the next one over, and then move on to the next." He inhaled hard. "If I lose them again, then I'll have nothing left to stop me… I won't _want_ to stop."

"I understand, Doctor, but remember this is the son of the Doctor, and he's as pig-headed as we are." He stepped closer. "I don't know about Rose's bull-headedness…"

"Worse," Ten admitted. "Oh. Very much worse." He covered his mouth in his hand and paced the room. "If we try to send her away to keep her safe, she'll neuter us both." He stopped pacing and tapped his shoe on the carpet. "It's not like me sending her away has ever been entirely successful. No. Not Rose. Not Rose Tyler. She always finds her way back to me."

"Pardon me?"

"Never mind. You'll find out in time." He offered a smile. "It's one of the things I love about her – her ability to fight all the odds and come back home to me."

Four scratched at his hair and flopped down onto Gallifrey's bed. "Then save time and the potential ramifications of omitting Rose and Gallifrey from the equation and make a plan with them in it." He pressed his elbows into his knees and let his hands hand between the spread of his knees. "Are you very sure that Joan has been taken over?"

"She kept demanding that I release the Time Lord, so I'd say that's a fairly positive identification." He leaned his back against the wardrobe and crossed his legs at the ankle. His hands remained deep inside his trouser pockets. "The Family typically travels in a pack of four. So. One down. Three more to…" He stiffened. "Gal was in the room with us." He expelled a hard and hoarse groan. "Oh. Oh! She's already onto him. She must've caught onto his scent when he was in the room with us." He pushed off the wardrobe. "She grabbed at him and tried to take him away for _punishment._ " He almost turned green at the thought. "If she'd gotten him…"

"She didn't, so let's not even consider that scenario," Four snapped sharply. "You seem to be the emotional type in this incarnation, and I don't particularly want to deal with a weeping and slobbering mess of Time Lord."

"Give me some credit."

"You haven't given me any cause to want to give you that," Four shot back with a laugh. "Prove yourself to be more than a half wit…"

Singing from down the hallway gave Ten pause and he looked to the doorway. "Oh speak of the little devil." He shot a look back to Four. "Not a word to him. Do you hear me?"

"With this child's penchant for running off to be the hero? I have to agree with you." He couldn't help but smile at the tune carrying in from the hallway. "He does love to sing, doesn't he?"

"And talk," Ten added with a chuckle. "Like his dad he does love the sound of his own voice."

"He wouldn't be a Time Lord if he didn't," Four mused quietly. His quiet expression bloomed to a smile of thrill as Gallifrey entered the room. "Oh for the love of Arcadia…"

He wore nothing but a white fluffy towel around his waist. His hair was wet and fashioned into a fauxhawk that curled like a cresting wave atop his head and dripped small droplets of water onto the apples of his cheeks. The water droplets still beading on his back and shoulders, as well as the hairbrush in his hand being used as a microphone made it obvious that the youngster had chosen song over actually towelling himself off.

He strutted into the room to the sound of his own voice, much to the amusement of both men waiting for him in his room. He pointed toward one and then the other as he sung of having the moves of _Jagger_ , and then turned to a bureau to retrieve pants and an undershirt.

"No looking," he sang with a wriggle of his towel covered hips as he his back toward them and leaned forward to step into a bright red pair of pants with little yellow lightning bolts all over them. "My booty is like the sun; all brilliant power that'll blind you if you look at it."

"Why's that then, Gal?" Ten chuckled. "Is it because It's so brilliantly pasty white it's blinding, perhaps? Really. I'm going to take you to a planet that has an endless summer so we can put some colour into you."

Gallifrey popped his head through the collar of his undershirt and grinned toward Four. "Dad already tried that. On Gallifrey. Didn't really work." He sighed. "Still. Not gonna argue with some Summer. Me and Mum have been in doom and gloom and cold weather for as long as I can remember." He tossed his towel to the floor and danced over to the wardrobe on the other side of the room to the bureau. "Well. We can discount the trip to Gallifrey. Woah, was it kind of warm up there. Is it always that toasty on Gallifrey? Is that why everything's so … red and orange?"

"Red and orange are fine colours," Ten argued with a smile. "They inspire warmth. They are the colours of action, and the thirst for adventure. Passion, Gallifrey! Passion and prestige – the power of a Time Lord's presence."

Gallifrey shrugged. "Just used to green grass and blue sky is all," he countered. "And what, with green symbolizing growth and harmony and the freshness and fertility of life, we can't exactly discount that now, can we?"

"I suppose not, little Lord."

"Not to say I didn't like it," he added. "Gallifrey is awesome, brilliant, molto bene and all that stuff." He winked to his father. "Just like me." He turned back to the wardrobe and opened the door. "And a blue sky overhead. Well that … just … oh … Uh-huh." He frowned as he looked back to his bed, where both Doctors waited for him. He looked first at Four, who was seated on the bed, and then to Ten, who stood with a purse in his lips, a curl in his brow and his hands in his trouser pockets. " _Really_ , dad?"

Ten's brows shot up. "Who. Me? What've I done now? And before you answer, do take into account that I have been a human for the past two months and therefore may be guilty of a human-y act or two before I left the TARDIS." He smirked. "Sleep walking. It's like sleep walking. Chameleon arch puts you into a walking sleep so you can get your act together before you wake up in your new form." He shrugged. "But you don't remember it, really. Though the TARDIS probably made a recording of it. Or it didn't happen at all and poor Martha had to put everything in place all by herself." He exhaled apologetically. "Martha. Oh that brilliant and patient girl. I owe her a spa planet when we're all done here. What'dya think, Gal. Do you think your mum would like…" He paused when he caught sight of a garment hanging off a hanger in Gallifrey's hand and the accusing stare of the young child.

"Dad. Am I blaming you or TARDIS for this?"

Ten couldn't help but grin wildly as a happy little giggle rumbled in the back of his throat. "What? You don't like blue?"


	45. Reunited

A/N: Reunited and it feels so good ... reunited cause we understood ... there's one perfect fit and sugar this one is it... We're both so excited cause we're reunited hey, hey...

(Showing my age there, eh?)

I'll probably lose a lot of you after this chapter ... but it's not finished yet. Nope. Still got the family to beat! Still some surprises in store...

I've made you wait a while for this, and I'm soorrrrrry... I really, really, really, hope that this reunion doesn't disappoint. I hope it isn't anti-climactic. I hope you still stick with me beyond this point...

Not too far to go ... almost done

~~oooOOOooo~~

 _Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Bloody Tick and Bloody Tock._

Rose watched the flick flick flick of the second hand of the watch that the Doctor had given her on Gallifrey as part of his wedding gift to her. A nice little fob watch. Gold and silver. With intricate engravings of the southern mountains of Gallifrey gracing the front cover. Gallifreyan circular script graced the inside of the watch and bore his and her names delicately intertwined by the infinite looping symbol that each Prydonian chapter member wore upon their Time Lord robes. It was as masculine as it was feminine, and definitely Time-Lord-y in its classic pretentiousness….

…And the fact that the time on the face automatically changed to the relative time and date of wherever its possessor happened to be.

Time on Gallifrey did pass quite differently to time on Earth, Rose noted to herself. Time on Gallifrey seemed to pass by in a whisper; so gentle it was unfelt. She could stand still for hours and feel as though only a moment had passed.

….Now. Earth, on the other hand.

Earth time had long been known to drag its sorry ass. This was especially true when the person who was watching the clock was waiting for something very important.

…In this case, it was a mother waiting for her wayward husband to bring home her errant child.

An hour and a half ago. Ninety minutes. Five thousand four hundred seconds. That's how long she had been waiting since the Doctor phoned to let her know that he was with Gallifrey and would bring him by shortly.

She might not have been a Time Lord with superior time sense and intelligence, but even she knew that there was no way that the fifteen-minute walk to the old barn could be stretched to a full ninety minutes. Not even with those two having to stop every three paces to discuss the physics and science behind a leaf falling from a tree to the ground, or why a pebble was a specific colour and shape….

She was becoming concerned. Concerned because the Doctor hadn't contacted her in ninety minutes. Concerned because that was her little boy and if been so upset that he'd run off like that, then…

…What _had_ happened? She hadn't verified that before she took off on her own in search of her youngster. Romana had been excruciatingly tight lipped. Martha had been accosted almost the moment she took chase after Gallifrey. An escaping child didn't exactly watch where he was running, and so three pot plants and a table of crockery fell victim to the dash.

Rose had been informed of his escape far too late for her to stop it. Generally she could, though. Gallifrey feared her wrath enough that a stern call of his name could have him skidding to a stop in the dirt.

But the last month on Gallifrey had proven that her child reacted the same way with his father. If he was to take off and the Doctor called for him, Gal would stop without question.

"Romana," Rose ventured finally.

"Yes, Rose," Romana replied as she rearranged small vials on a shelf in the cupboard for the twelfth time.

"Do you have any idea what upset Gallifrey?"

Romana's eyes widened a moment, and her sliding of vials momentarily ceased. She cleared her throat and carefully went back to her task. "I can really only offer you speculation," she answered with as much deliberance as she used on her task of moving the vials around. "I wasn't there, you see."

Rose's brow curved high on her forehead. That answer was far too carefully thought out – even for Romana.

"Right," she muttered with a stern voice as she folded her arms across her face and set her jaw for effect. "Tell me."

"There's really nothing to tell," Romana ventured without looking at Rose. She lifted another vial from the counter and set it next to another identical vial. "Again, I can only speculate. I would suggest, if you're looking for answers, that Martha might be your best person to ask."

Martha's voice moaned in from the doorway. "Gee. Thanks, Romana. Throw _me_ under the bus why don't you."

Romana spun in place, her eyes wide and her brows high. "Could you please explain to me just how that saying evolved, Martha Jones? I have to admit that it seems a rather violent charge to put on someone for making nothing more than a mere statement."

"Yeah," Martha challenged. "And as a Time Lady you should know just how sharp words can really be."

"Yes, that's true, but they aren't busses."

"Oh, but they can be, Romana."

Romana stared at Martha for a long moment as she analysed her response. Finally, after a moment, she blinked her eyes and gave a nod. "Good enough, I suppose," she said with a sigh and went back to her task of rearranging her vials. "And depending on just who is wielding the word, you are quite correct in comparing it to the impact that a bus might have on oneself."

"Sometimes I think you are being deliberately obtuse just to be annoying."

Romana chuckled, but didn't look away from her task. "Sometimes I just might be."

"Just _how_ does the Doctor handle you, then?"

Romana laughed at that question. "Oh, Martha. Martha. Martha. A Time Lord does not _handle_ a lady, nor does he put up with her, ignore her, tolerate her …"

"Then what _does_ he do," Martha queried.

"I was going to ask the same question," Rose added.

Romana winked. "He obeys her every whim and desire, while pretending that he does all of the above." She saw the curious smiles on both women drop. "Think about it, ladies. The Doctor may whine and complain and lord himself where possible, but when it comes down to it…" she paused. "Well?"

Martha and Rose shared a look and then a smile. Martha held up her pinky. "Right here, yeah?"

Rose laughed and covered her mouth with one hand. She grabbed at Martha's pinky with the other to push it down as though to hide it. "Shhh," she hissed through her giggle, her hand still hovering over her mouth and nose. "We can't let him know that we've worked it out."

Martha circled her finger in the air between them. "Then let's keep that between us, okay? No sense in ruining our control of a Time Boy because we wanted to skite about it."

"Agreed," they both chorused in response.

"And speaking of _Time Boy_ ," Rose began. "Do you know why Gallifrey took off?"

"Is he okay," Martha asked quickly. "Did the Doctor find him?"

Rose nodded. "Yes. He and Mr. Smith caught up with him at the TARDIS, apparently."

Martha's eyes flared immediately. "What did you say? The Doctor's shown him the TARDIS?" She shook her head and shoulders at the thought and began a light walk toward the window. "Is he completely insane?"

"As you say here on Earth," Romana muttered as she abandoned her project to lean up against the counter. 'The jury is out on that. Still awaiting a verdict."

"No, but," Martha spluttered. "Isn't that inviting a paradox or something?"

"Hardly," Romana answered with a huff of breath. "Well. Yes. Or. No." She frowned ad looked quite confused, which was highly unusual of the brilliant Time Lady. "Well. It all depends, doesn't it? If whatever occurred on the last cycle of this causal loop is different this time around, then yes, we have a paradox situation. But of course, with non linear points and flux moments open to change provided that it doesn't interfere with the paradoxical result of a fixed point, we don't relly have anything to be greatly concerned about. Well. We shouldn't at any rate. But who knows with the Doctor?" She inhaled a deep breath and held at her brow as she wobbled slightly in her stand. "Oh my, that was a mouthful."

"That made no sense at all," Martha said with a frown. "Are you feeling okay, Romana?"

"I'm surprised to say that I understood the bulk of that jumble," Rose admitted. "And while I trust you with everything inside me that this isn't a situation that'll bring the reapers…"

"Oh don't talk nonsense," Romana spluttered. "Reapers are just legend. Threats to wayward Time Lords to prevent them doing any damage to the Time Stream."

"Nope," Rose popped.

"What do you mean by _nope_ ," Romana managed, with a decent pop in the p and all.

"Seen 'em," Rose answered quickly. "I messed about with a fixed point and they just descended." She looked with worry to Romana. "The Doctor said they were sterilizing it. Sterilizing time itself."

"Dramatic," Romana answered on a breath of awe. "So they actually exist, and you and the Doctor were able to defeat them."

"It took the death of a man to do it, but yes." She swallowed and dropped her head. "We did survive the moment, I guess."

"I would love to do a paper on that experience, Rose. Would you mind talking about it over tea this evening in the TARDIS?"

Martha chuckled. "How to excite a Gallifreyan: Death and destruction and the Reapers of Time."

Romana slid a look of thrill toward Martha. "Oh. You have no idea."

Rose squirmed a little. "So the Doctor taking Mr. Smith to the TARDIS won't cause any fracture of reality?"

"That's a likely scenario in the mind of Mr. Smith," Romana answered. She held her hands up at Rose's gasp. "But that isn't to say that it's going to fracture the reality around _us_ , though. Worse case, Mr. Smith has a neural implosion at the sight of the TARDIS, and whatever memories try to weave through because of her presence, and runs off to the nearest institution to get himself committed."

Rose's voice became little more than a peep. "And the _best_ case?"

"I don't want to get your hopes up, Rose," she said apologetically. "The chances of _yours and Gallifrey's_ best case scenario occurring are so infantismal…"

Rose cleared her throat with a hoarse sound and nodded. "Yeah. I know." She inhaled a deep breath to chase away her upset and looked to Martha. "So. Martha. To abruptly change the subject back to what we were originally discussing."

"You want to know what spooked Gal," she muttered with a pained look on her face. "Rose. You'e not known to shoot the messenger or anything like that, are you?"

Rose blinked. Her expression remained neutral. Her voice was calm. "That depends on whether or not the messenger wants to relay the message, doesn't it?"

"Uh.."

"When it comes to Gal, I have a really itchy trigger finger. When I think I'm getting the run around, I'll shoot whomever stands in between me and the truth." Her eyes blinked a single flutter. "Now. If the person I'm asking ante's up with the information I require. No matter how ugly the truth may be, I have no reason to get a little slap happy on them if they don't deserve it."

"HemayhavewalkedinandcaughtJoanandMrSmithhavingsex."

Romana's eyes shot wide. "I'd admit to being impressed at the rapid fire response, there, Martha. But I'm afraid I didn't understand a single word of that."

"I did," Rose said quietly.

"Rose, I'm sorry," Martha pleaded gently. "And I could be wrong. I could be completely wrong. Maybe that's not it at all. Maybe he saw her examining him and misread the scene. It happens."

"Why would she need to be examining him," Rose said with a sniff. "Is he sick?"

Martha shook her head. "Miserable, perhaps, but not sick. Rose. He loves you. Even as a Human with no memory of being a Time Lord that man loves you." She shuddered out a heartbroken and shuddering breath. "He doesn't even know you, he's just met you and yet he truly believes that you and Gallifrey are the two most important things in his whole universe."

"So important to him that he felt the need to sleep with another woman?"

Marth winced. "Well. No. At this point we are really just _assuming_ that it happened. And if it did happen, then in his defence, he just found out that you got married to another guy."

"Typical," Rose snapped. "Just bloody typical human guy behaviour!"

"Well, he _is_ a human."

"That's not an excuse," Rose growled. "He might have the bits and bobs that make a human man a human, but he's still a Time Lord that's bound to Time Lord … well … things!"

"Such as _what_ ," Martha defended him sharply. "Taking a vow of celibacy to spend the rest of his life pining away for a woman who ran off with someone else? Rose. With all due respect, _you_ married _another_ man."

"But I married _him_!"

" _He_ doesn't know that!" She took a calming breath and lowered the volume of her voice. "Give him a bit of leeway, or at the very least the benefit of the doubt."

"I know. I know." Rose groaned and carded her fingernails through her hair. She clutched a fistful of blonde and let out a growl. "What do I do? What if he slept with her? Gal's got to be devastated… How do we get past this?"

"Ladies," Romana called quietly. "While I'm rather fascinated by this discussion, and the passions both of you obviously feel toward the Doctor, I feel it might be time to clear up the _assumption_ as Martha called it."

Rose released the hold of her hair and slumped as she looked to the Time Lady. "You know for sure what happened?"

"Not entirely," she admitted. "But I do know that the actual act of sexual intercourse did not happen."

"Thanks for saying it so clinically," Rose moaned.

"I figured terming it as _making love_ might be a little insensitive."

"Annnd thank you for giving me _that_ image."

Romana shook her head with a smile. "Oh, my dear Rose." She looked toward the other woman. "Martha." She looked back to Rose. "Time Lord or human, the Doctor has proven that he still retains his telepathic abilities."

"How's he proven that," Martha asked with a frown.

"Memory leak," she replied flatly. "The fact he feels a bond toward his wife and child. If he were just a human he'd lack this attachment."

"Humans do tend to form links with their children," Martha defended. "My mum and dad would rip apart anyone who tried to hurt one of us kids."

"Yes," Romana stated. "And I acquiesce that the love of a parent toward their child knows no boundaries, but a telepathic bond between parent and child is very different. And it is imperative that such bonds are created for our species to survive."

"Thirteen faces and all," Rose said with a sigh.

"Thirteen personalities as well," Romana added. "And that said. If he holds that bond, then a coupling with anyone other than his bonded partner is impossible."

Rose frowned. "That's _not_ just a pretty little vow?"

Romana shook her head. "Even in the extremely rare occurrence that a bonded Lord might dare to stray, he couldn't perform the physical act."

"Can't get it up?"

"Crude," Romana replied with a laugh. "And no, he can't." She then winked. "And let's add that the act would flare the bond and issue such pain that will ultimately render the adulterous Lord unconscious, and it becomes quite impossible for him to perform adequately to sate a potential partner."

Martha's eyes widened. "Is there any possible way of being able to introduce that into the human race?"

"Oh," Romana sang sadly. "Humans simply lack the required function in the brain to be telepathic."

Rose frowned, although it was a grimace of thought. "But. What about me? I was able to form a link with the Doctor."

"You're special," Romana said with a wink. "Brax suggests that you might be a genetic throwback to a frisky Time Lord that may have had some dalliances with a human woman."

"That's a rather unnerving thought," Martha mused. She slid a look to Rose. "Randy Time Lords spreading their seed across the universe."

"Don't you think for a second that the council didn't accuse the Doctor of the same behaviour," Romana offered. "I heard that rumour more than once at the Academy. The renegade Time Lord fraternizing with aliens."

"That would be an unnerving thought if it weren't so brilliantly ludicrious," Martha replied. "The man is so clueless around woman. I'm surprised he was able to conceive Gallifrey to begin with."

Rose giggled. "Oh. Martha. He's not clueless at all."

"No, obviously it's all a carefully crafted front."

Martha put her hand on Rose's arm and rubbed it in a supportive gesture. "Do you feel better about it? About his actions? You know, with what Romana told us."

"About the prospect of him making whoopee with the crotchety and racist bigot we call Matron? Sure." She narrowed her eyes. "But he made my son cry, so he's nowhere near off the hook. Noone upsets my child."

Rose took Martha by the hand and tipped her ear to the door. "I'm getting ansty waiting in here for the boys. Care to join me on a wander to the TARDIS to see what's keeping them?"

Romana was fast to pull on her scarf and jacket. "Not without me. This poorly equipped and outdated facility is slowly draining me of the will to live." She swept her hair over her shoulder. "And I really liked this body. I chose it especially."

"You can do that?"

"Of course," Romana said with a roll in her eyes. "And I've no doubt that the Doctor's Tenth self was chosen specifically for you." She winked. "And I will place a wager on his next and fifth regeneration will be chosen with you in mind."

Rose laughed. "Make him blonde and young and cute."

~~oooOOOooo~~

All three ladies shuddered when they stepped out of the doors and into the chilled evening. The temperature must've dropped at least ten degrees since dusk, and with all of them forced to wear skirts as part of their uniforms, they felt the crisp cold air immediately.

"I almost want to request that the three of us huddle for warmth," Martha said with a sigh as she rubbed at her arms. "God, it's brisk out here tonight."

"Fall in the English countryside," Romana breathed with a smile. "I find it very refreshing."

Rose narrowed her eyes at her. "I bet you love Winter, too, don't you?"

"I find it exceedingly pleasant."

"Oh, you would." Rose looked to Martha. "Give me a hot summer day and a beach any day."

"I hear that, sista," Martha agreed with a chuckle. "And when this is over, I am going to demand that he take us to one."

"And as he is wrapped around our little fingers," Rose said with a wink. "He'll have no choice but to comply."

"While he complains and whines…"

"And finds an alien invasion to ruin the trip."

Their laughter seemed to be echoed as they crossed the grasses of the school yard. Echoed, but with a definite masculine undertone to it.

"Okay," Romana said with a curious sigh. "Echoes across the countryside returns in a lower register?"

Martha exhaled a laugh through her nose that had her immediately raise a hand to wipe at it. "No. Not an echo." She elbowed Rose and pointed off into the darkness. "Looks like the boys and the ladies are meeting each other half way."

Romana and Rose squinted to see through the darkness ahead of them, where the laughter still seemed to be thundering across the wind toward them. The full moon seemed to finally break through the clouds to dimly light the trio that walked along the roadway toward them.

"Oh-kay," Martha breathed out with a laugh when she saw little Gallifrey linked by hands between Mr. Smith and the Doctor. He happily swung both arms forward and backward as he rapidly regaled them both with a mile-per-minute babble.

"What is he wearing," Romana queried softly.

Rose was silent. Her eyes were wide and locked on the man in the brown pinstriped suit and jacket.

Martha wasn't. "Looks like a tiny blue pinstripe suit and tie." She pushed at Rose's shoulder with a laugh. "If he didn't already look like a miniature version of him before, he does now." She wiped at her eye. "He even has the jacket. And the hair! Oh. That's brilliant! The Doctor's going to be heartbroken that he missed this sight."

Rose slowly shook her head as she focused on the man holding her son's hand, who dipped backward with his inhale, and then staggered forward with a brilliant laugh at Gallifrey's rambling. "I don't know that he is…"

"Mum!"

Rose's eyes shot to her child as he called out to her. Her face broke out into a thrilled, relieved, and brilliant smile as she broke from the ladies to run forward toward her child. She called his name as she stooped in her run to collect him in her arms and spin him in a fierce embrace.

"Oh my Gal," she panted breathlessly as she set his little red converse feet back on the ground. 'Are you okay? Are you hurt?" She dropped to her knees and twisted him side to side in search of injury.

He moaned, but held his arms up as though expecting to be frisked. "I'm fine. No boo-boos to speak of." He gave her his most brilliant smile. "And I even showered, so no fight for me to get cleaned up before bed tonight. Already done!"

Rose clutched his little face in her hands and looked him over one last time. "I was worried about you, Gal." She peppered his face with kisses, much to his absolute embarrassed chagrin. "So worried."

"Mum," he moaned quietly through his teeth with a grimace at her attention and continual peppering of kisses on his cheeks and forehead. "Not in front of the Doctors, okay?"

She stopped immediately and sat back on her heels. "What did you just say?"

"Not that I don't like your kisses, Mum. You know I do. Can't go to bed without getting tucked in and kissed on the forehead by my mum. But right now, you know…" He tipped his head to the two men. "Just not in front of them, okay? Gotto be the big man, you know?"

Rose raised her head to Four and gave him a loving smile as she slowly drew herself to a stand. "Thank you, Doctor. Thanks for bringing our baby home safe."

"He's my universe, too," Four said with a smile as he approached her and cupped her cheeks. He pressed light kissed to her cheeks, and then a soft press of his lips to hers. "You both are."

"I love you," she whispered softly against his mouth as she moved in for another.

He took the kiss, and then backed off slowly. He ran a thumb over her cheekbone and looked at her with pure adoration and sadness in his eyes. "And I you, my sweet Rose."

"That sounds almost like a good bye," she whispered worriedly.

Ten's voice, his low tenor, his characteristic break in his voice when emotion took hold, called to her with a sigh. "Think of it as a hello."

Rose clutched at Four's jacket and stepped in against his chest. She half hid as she looked past his arm toward the figure that had haunted her dreams for more than eight years. "Mr. Smith?"

Ten shook his head and slid his hands awkwardly into his trouser pockets. After a swallow he shook his head. "No. Not anymore."

Rose blinked over tears and shook her head with doubt. She clutched tighter at Four's jacket. "For how long this time?"

His look softened and he gave her a timid smile. "Forever."

Rose backed just lightly out of Four's jacket and looked at him questioningly. "Really?"

He nodded, the timid smile shifting to one with more confidence. "Really."

She stepped away from Four and warily approached Ten. He watched her movements, and her approach with warm eyes and a slight smile. He kept his hands in his pockets and lowered the hang of his head to keep his eyes locked firmly on hers as she drew closer.

Rose's hand tremored as she raised it to stroke at his cheek with her fingertips. She inhaled a shaking breath as his eyes fluttered shut and his head tilted in toward her touch. "Doctor?"

His eyes fluttered open and he nodded. "Hello Rose, long time no see."

Rose gulped a deep breathy sob and snatched her hand away from his face. "It's really you?"

His mouth stretched into a wide grin. "It's really me." His smile faltered as he lifted a hand to reach for her and wipe away the tears he could see streaming unchecked down her cheek. "And I've missed you … oh … so much."

He didn't sense it coming – although Rassilon only knows how he didn't. Noone expected it. But within a heartbeat, Rose Tyler's hand slammed hard across his cheek. It threw him off to one side, and sounded out loudly in the darkness. He hissed in through his teeth as the sting of her strike burned clear across his face – and likely across regenerations – and then dared lift his eyes to hers.

"What was _that_ for?"

She glared at him slouched in a sideward stoop. Her entire body shook with a massive hit of whatever chemical her brain had released. She panted. She broke out several sobs. "You … _you_ … You…"

He slowly straightened up. His voice came out hot and confused. "What, Rose? I _what_?"

She suddenly thrust her arms forward and clutched tightly at the lapels of his jacket. As fast as she had struck out at him, she pulled him in toward her. She rolled quickly onto her toes and crushed her mouth against his. She whimpered into the unresponsive press of his mouth against hers, and tugged him yet closer.

His arms flailed unsurely at his side. His eyes were open and wide. His breath drew in and out raggedly through his nose.

But then he felt it. The wetness of her cheeks. The hard brush of her panted breaths. The shake in her body. The sudden flare in their bond. He looked at her closed eyes and just gave into it. His arms snapped around her back and his eyes slammed shut. He tilted his head just slightly and took her breath in as his as he parted his lips against hers and inhaled her completely.

He heard his name moaned into his mouth through her delicious lips and immediately a possessive growl rumbled within his belly. He didn't think any form of coherent thought as he slowly began to walk the two of them toward the nearest firm surface – somewhere he could press up against her, take her weight of her faltering legs, and just enjoy the moment.

He found that surface and pushed firmly against it, and immediately deepened their connection. The connection broke only with a disgusted sound and a shove at his shoulder.

"I'd thank you not to use me as the post by which the two of you decide to use to rut against each other," Four grumbled with annoyance.

Ten lifted his face, flushed with a dopey smile. "Now _that_ ," he began with a purr. " _That_ is _canoodling_."

"Yes. Indeed," Four groused. "And might I remind you that there's a child present."

Ten looked toward his son, who actually watched his parents with his own dopey little smile of thrill. He held out a hand to him to call him over. "Come Gal."

Rose curled into his side and opened her arm to Gallifrey to join she and Ten in a cuddle. "Come here, baby. Come meet your daddy."

Gallifrey snuggled into his father's side and looked up at him with impossibly large brown eyes filled with thrill, awe, and absolute love. He hooked his arm around Rose's waist and gave his mother a smile. "We're home, Mum. Our family's back together."

Ten looked down at the brown eyes of his child. He stroked at his hair and felt his hearts constrict as the young lad practically purred at the attention, and then dropped his head against his belly. He then looked toward Rose. His wife. And found himself losing his resolve at her smile and the tears that still rolled down her cheek.

His chest shook, and his hearts ached. He circled his arms around them both and leaned forward to bring them as close to within him as he possibly could. "My family," he breathed with reverence before he collapsed into them both.


	46. K-9's Bellyache

A/N: eep! So long between updates! Got hit hard with RL matters ... work, Christmas shopping, work, laptop not working, forgetting to email fic ... BUT... all worked out now.

Admittedly I stalled on this one. I knew where I wanted to head but couldn't for the life of me even think of where to begin! It took me three days and seven different starts to finally find a place I could work with. I dumped off a lot of text and wasted a shitload of time, but I think I finally got there.

From here it will be much easier...

Anyhooo ... the fight with this chapter saw no victor. I hope that it sits okay and reads okay.

Thanks, as always, for all the spectacular reviews and comments! Oh, how they keep me going. And a big thank you to Rukiara, who did a glorious fanart pic of our little Gal... Rukiara, can I share the link for everyone to see? Lemme know, because it's awesome and must be shared!

~~oooOOOooo~~

The TARDIS wasn't sure if she'd ever had the joy of so many visitors before. Six passengers; four of them Time Lord, one human, and then her precious wolf. It was like the Earth custom of Christmas for her and she held just a little apprehension as to her appearance. No time to tidy up or prepare a meal for her guests.

Oh, what she was able to put together would have to do it, and if they were offended by her messy interior, then sobeit.

…Although she made a little effort to clean up the galley from the Doctor's earlier culinary-related disaster to get something on for her guests.

"This way," Four ordered with a smile as they all entered the console room. "We can put on some tea and discuss where we're going to go from here."

TARDIS wondered if she should switch a couple of corridors around to give her some more time to get herself together.

Ten let out an appreciative whistle. "Well look at you," he cooed as he stroked his hand over her wooden console. You look absolutely brilliant, old girl." He looked toward Rose and squeezed her hand – a hand he hadn't let go of since they'd reunited thirty minutes ago. "Very cozy and man-cave, don't you think?"

Rose chuckled and leaned in to his arm a little. "Very bachelor pad."

He smiled as he looked up to the central column. "I miss this theme, I do."

Four's brows twitched a little into a light frown as he juggled his hold on the child that was clinging onto his back like a Flubble in a tree back on Gallifrey. "If this theme pleases you so much, then why did you change it back to her original organic state?"

Ten let out a laugh. "Oh. You say that like I have a choice in her design." He shook his head and shrugged. "She just goes about changing herself whenever she gets bored." He petted the console. "Don't you, old girl?"

"Organic is good," Gallifrey agreed over the Four's shoulder from underneath his far-too-big-for-his-little-head hat. "Lots of hidey holes to play in."

Four looked over his shoulder at the little face perched on it. "Hidey holes inside a TARDIS aren't safe. You shouldn't be playing about in anything of that nature." He looked back to the console and sighed. "Oh how many times I've gotten a zap or two by an errant touch of an exposed wire."

Gallifrey tightened the hook of his legs around Four's waist and chuckled as he also tightened the hook of his arms around his neck. "Auntie TARDIS would never zap me or let me get hurt." He lifted his head and grinned at the centre console. "Cause she loves me."

Four let out a sigh. "Yes. She does. And once upon a time she felt the same about me."

"I'm sure she still does," he cooed gently. "I'm just littler and cuter than you, so she gets all protective mum on me. But that doesn't mean she doesn't love her _Thief_ just as much. I'm sure she does. In fact I _know_ she does. I'm almost surprised that she's not all jealous of mum. You know. Cause of how much you love her and all. I mean. Well. Different kind of love I guess. I'm sure Aunty TARDIS isn't looking to make sweet love and babies with you or anything like that." His eyes widened as each person on the command deck coughed at the mental image. "Oh. Forget I said that. Please forget I said that. That was just really wrong, and I reckon I'm going to dream about that tonight." He slumped on his father's back and groaned. "Oh. Please don't let me dream about that. Please please please." He caught sight of K-9 rolling in through the door and wriggled for freedom. "K-9! Here boy! Let's you and me go play fetch or something."

Four dipped at his knees to let Gallifrey safely slide off his back and watched the child run after K-9 with a high brow. "The attention span of a gnat, that one."

"Gallifrey," Ten called after him as the youngster stumbled lightly over his own feet. "Be careful. I don't want to have to go about patching you up _again_ tonight…" He caught Rose's sharp look of question and rubbed at the back of his neck as he took a step or two backward. "That isn't to say that I've already had to patch him up at all tonight."

"No?"

"Well, maybe a little bit of dermal regeneration," he continued. His hands slid deep inside his trouser pockets. "Nothing too bad. At least not on his knees. Just your run of the mill first degree epidermal injury. Could hardly notice it, _really_. That Gallifreyan cotton is pretty hardy and protects little knees well enough." He scratched at his sideburn and pursed his lips as his eyes fell on the time rotor. "Same can't be said about his little hands, though. Got right down to the subcutaneous layer. Took some creative setting changes on the regenerator to get it all cleaned up with no scarring or puckering of the skin."

Rose lifted a brow and tilted her head at him. "Were you _really_ considering lying to me about that just now?"

Well," he managed with a drawl around a guilty pucker in his lips. "Not _lying, per se_. Maybe a slight tweaking of the truth." His brows dropped into a deep frown. "Oh hold on. I told you the truth, the whole truth. The unabridged version even." He stepped in toward her and let his fingers dance a little on her hips. He nuzzled his nose against hers as he guided them both toward the console. "And you know I don't do that for just anyone."

"No? Really?" Rose giggled lightly at the press of his body against hers and the press of the TARDIS console against her backside. "Does that mean I'm special?"

He gave her a throaty chuckle and answered by claiming her mouth in a fierce kiss, the sight and sound of which turned everyone else away.

Martha pointed toward the doorway. "Kitchen's this way, yeah?"

"Indeed it is," Four answered with a slight groan. "And whenever the two of you are done, please feel free to join us." In between the smacks and sucking sounds of the kiss, he thought he caught his tenth self answering in the affirmative. He certainly saw the waving of his arm to indicate he heard him. A growl rumbled deep inside his throat when that hand dropped to Rose's knee to pull it up around his hip. "Would it be murder or suicide to kill him right now?"

Romana let out a sharp and derisive snort at his question. "Whilst I suspect that is a rhetorical question, I will answer it anyway. On Gallifrey, you murdering a future incarnation of yourself is, indeed, considered to be suicide." Another hard exhale and a narrowing of her stare that practically sealed her eyes shut. "While it is a crime more heinous than any other on Gallifrey, I'll suggest that Council might be more of the mind to award you for it than condemn you."

The dark tone of Romana's voice quickly snapped the Doctor out of his jealous snarl. He looked to her with wide eyes of curiosity.

"Romana," he began cautiously. "Have I happened to have upset you somehow?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Oh," he started with a breathy chuckle. "What makes me think it, indeed." He ran his hand up and down in the air in front of her. "You're standing with all the rigidity of a mountain. Your arms are folded in front of your chest, tight, your jaw is clenched, locked, and you're staring at me with a direct glare of hostility and aggressiveness – and really, you should refrain from doing that, Romana. It is hardly befitting of a Lady of Time to hold such an aggrieved expression…"

"Oh, but I believe it is very befitting."

"…Especially toward a Lord of Time," he concluded with his own twitch in his eye. He then let out a huff of frustration. "Tell me what I've done," he ordered with an annoyed roll of his eyes as he turned his back on her to walk down the corridor toward the galley. "And do at least make it an _interesting_ affront to your sensitivities will you?" His voice dulled to a distracted whisper. "If I have to listen to it, make it a good tale."

"Five minutes," she growled as she followed his lead, but took to pacing at his side. "Not even that. It was four minutes, fourty seven seconds."

"You'll have to forgive me," he grumbled. "If I don't know what in Rassilon you're talking about."

"You gave your older self less than five minutes to reacquaint himself with his wife and child."

His forward stride slowed only briefly. He kept his gaze dead ahead as his hands found his trouser pockets and fisted inside the thick twill. "That was more than enough time."

"Hardly," she argued on a flat tone. Her eyes were as locked forward as his were. "He is a Lord who walked alongside his long lost mate and his child for days without knowing who they were. He was accused to seeking the affections of another…"

"Oh don't give me that claptrap," he huffed. "Considering the circumstances surrounding him being here in the first place, and the fact that we are at risk of exposure and discovery by the very creatures he was hiding from to begin with – the time afforded to him was more than adequate."

"It was _hardly_ adequate."

"Don't talk nonsense," he snapped. "That time frame would allow him to greet his mate, kiss her, make love to and impregnate her with time to spare for cuddling and sweet nothings…" He rolled his eyes, exhaled sharply, and rolled his wrist in the air for dramatics. "That said, he can embrace and kiss his wife and his child in a far more conservative time frame than the one I gave him."

She looked like she would gag. "Oh please tell me you're kidding."

"If he is an efficient type of fellow…"

"You realize," she barked incredulously. "That you're talking about yourself, yes?"

He spun on her and raised a finger in her face. "And you realize that you're talking about the affections of my wife and child toward another man?"

Romana softened her features and curled her hand around his finger. With light coaxing, she pushed his hand downward. "That other man is _you_ , Doctor."

"That doesn't make it any easier."

"Acting insolent certainly doesn't ease it, either, Doctor."

"I'm not being insolent," he muttered indignantly. "There is a very real danger out there, and I wish to keep you, Martha, Rose and Gallifrey safe." He dropped his head and then sniffed. "I didn't fully appreciate how hard this was going to be for me, Romana."

"I'm sorry, Doctor." Romana opened her arms and inhaled gently. "Do you need a hug?"

He coughed a sound of utter surprise. "Do I need a _what_?"

"A _hug,_ " she repeated. "Isn't that what they do on this planet when someone is upset?"

"On Earth between Humans, yes, Romana, they do hug it out." He flicked up his finger again when she flinched as though to move. "But I am a Time Lord from Gallifrey, and we don't do that." His finger circled in the air. "That _hugging_ thing." He pressed his lips together and shook his head. "Don't hug. Not a hugger."

Rose's giggle filled the corridor. She threaded herself underneath Four's arm and nestled against his side. "You are most _definitely_ a _hugger_ , Doctor," she corrected with a laugh as she pulled his arm over her shoulder and looked up at him with impossibly big eyes. "And Time Lords really do give the best hugs."

"Do we?" he whispered in question with a light smile.

"Oh most definitely," she affirmed. "All snuggly wuggly timey wimey…"

Ten walked past them with a shake in his head and a tsk in his tone. "That's bad even for you," he chided on a sigh as he dipped his hands into his trouser pockets, spun on the heels of his converse and used his ass to push open the door to the galley. "And that's really saying something, because I think I've heard the worst of the worst come from you."

Rose inhaled a sharp breath of faux hurt. "What are you saying, Doctor? Are you telling me that you've been faking it? All these years?" she inhaled two very exaggerated and hurt breaths. "All that laughter, the exclamations of me being _brilliant_ … that was all lies?"

He stretched a grin so widely that he found himself leaning forward slightly to try and find the strength to widen it further. "Yep."

Rose's expression lengthened to complete indignation and insult. "Well then." She leaned her face into his as Four led her past him. "If we're shooting for honestly here, Doctor. So was I."

His jovial expression shifted suddenly, especially at the spit of laughter from Martha. "Nope. Don't believe a word of it." The smile returned. "Superior biology, a telepathic bond…" Anything else he had to say in his defense were immediately halted by a yelp of a horrified mother.

"Oh my God. Gallifrey! What are you doing?" she looked desperately to the Doctor. "I'm sorry. If he's broken him, I'm so sorry."

The entire group of adults stood at the doorway to the TARDIS galley and looked down to the little figure on the floor. He lay on his belly on the tiled floor underneath the spread of his long jacket. His little converse shoes peeked out of blue and rust striped trouser bottoms, which poked from underneath his jacket. Sprawled out like a human star-fish, he was surrounded by small electronic bits and bobs, and stared into the belly of K-9 with all of the analysis of a veterinarian looking to diagnose the source of pain inside an animal.

At his mother's yelp, Gallifrey raised his head to look at his mother through the magnifying lenses of a LED lighted visor. He lifted a hand to switch off the light, but didn't lift the magnifying lenses from his eyes, but he did attempt to hide a small screwdriver underneath his belly. "What?"

Rose dropped to her knees at his side and looked with absolute horror at the mess that was K-9. "What did you do?"

"He said he had a belly ache," Gallifrey said quickly. "I wanted to see why."

"He's a robot," Rose challenged hotly. "How can a robot get a belly ache?"

"Precisely," Gallifrey answered with a snap of his fingers as he pushed his chest up by leaning on his elbows. "What could make a robot dog get a belly ache? That's the question, and a question that needs answering."

"But he's not your Robot," Rose whined. "And now. Oh my God. Is he even repairable?"

Gallifrey groaned and rolled his eyes as he lifted the visor. "Oh give me _some_ credit. Mum, of course he can. I wouldn't have gone in if I didn't think I could fix it."

"You'd better hope so, young man. Because I can't afford a new one of those."

The Doctors – both of them – crouched either side of Gallifrey. Ten set a hand on K-9's back and pulled his glasses from his pocket to take a closer look. Four shifted from his knees to sit on his hip at Gallifrey's side.

"Did you work out the problem, Gal?"

Gallifrey nodded and dropped the visor. He switched on the light and used the tip of the screwdriver to point out a specific part. "There's a malfunction in the AC servo motor. It's not communicating correctly with the actuator to give the most efficient process response timing. There's also a fault in the Exteroceptive and Proprioceptive sensors, which is throwing off his movements and timing." He scratched at his head, where the headband of the visor was becoming itchy. "I figured it might be a simple short in one of the circuits that was causing the malfunction, but I can't seem to locate …"

"Here," Ten said with his brows high as he shifted to lie on his stomach beside his child. "There's a tear in the insulation of the wire in the main lead for the servo."

"Huh," Gallifrey sang in surprise. "How'd I miss that?"

"The actual tear was hidden behind the Synchronous Actuator," Four answered. "Takes an experienced eye to pick up on the more finer details of K9's remarkable inner workings."

"Yep," Ten agreed. "And we've spent just as much time with our noses in the belly of this little beast than we have inside the belly of the TARDIS."

Four grunted. "There really is no need for exaggeration," he muttered dryly.

"Comparatively speaking, of course," Ten countered. "Break it down and work it out, Doctor. You'll find that when we compare the length of ownership versus the repair hours of both TARDIS and K-9, the tin dog is the victor in who got more attention." He pressed his lips together to set his lips into a rather adorable pout. "Then again. Makes sense I suppose. Dog being man's best friend and all."

"Actually," Gallifrey corrected with a grin. "TARDIS got – gets – more tinkering time than K-9."

Four shook his head. "I have to agree with my older incarnation, Gal. K-9 was riddled with issues from the moment I got him. I've spent many _many_ hours making adjustments and upgrades. Much moreso than I have the TARDIS."

"Doesn't matter," Gallifrey challenged as he got up onto his feet and leaned over the disembowled robot dog to retrieve a pen and paper off the table. "Let's do the math, yeah? I'll show ya."

"Ahh, yes. Mathematics and equations to work this out." Ten grinned as Gallifrey dropped back down onto his belly and started to scratch figures onto the paper. "I love math."

"Me too," Gallifrey said with a low chuckle. "So. You've owned Auntie TARDIS now for exactly _how long_?"

"Well," Ten drawled with a scratch at his sideburn. "That's a bit of a tough question to answer, really. I mean, we could talk in Gallifreyan timelines – which would make sense given that she is from Gallifrey – or we can try to align that relative timeframe with the timelines of Earth – which is K-9's place of origin…"

"We don't know that for certain," Four argued lightly. "We acquired K-9 on Titan Base, not Earth."

"Titan base, which was occupied by Human colonists." Ten rolled onto his side and looked over the top of Gallifrey's head toward his younger self. "The chances that K-9 originated anywhere other than on Earth is infantismally small."

"He may very well have been completely conceived, designed and built on the ship that took them to Titan Base, Doctor. We never really did establish K-9's true planet of origin."

"Possibly quite foolish on our part," Ten admitted with a roll in his eyes. "But really. It doesn't matter a the end of the day, now, does it?"

Four let out a laugh. "Which is just your way of admitting that you dragged me into an unnecessary debate."

"In my defence, you did start it by arguing my assumption as to K-9's origin." He grinned a cheeky smile. "And just what kind of _Doctor_ am I if I don't engage when someone disagrees with me?"

"That is very true."

Gallifrey let out his own sound of disbelief as he finished his scratching and looked over the figures and equations on the paper. "Well. Oh-kay."

Ten looked down to his child. "What's wrong?"

"My mathematics, obviously," he grumped with a hard sigh. "Because these equations have K-9 as the victor in who gets tinkered with more often."

Four grinned wide and grabbed the paper off the floor. "Oh, my boy. Admit when you're wrong, don't ever blame the math." He leaned over Gallifrey's back to show the workings to Ten. "And the math's accurate. Accurate to within a single percentile, actually."

"Brilliant," Ten muttered with awe.

"Magnificent," Four agreed. He looked down to his child. "I didn't know that you were such a gifted little mathematician."

Gallifrey pushed himself up to a seat and started to count on his fingers. "Math, and biology – actually just science in general. I like science a lot, don't you know. It's an art. It really is." He gasped as his eyes shot wide. "Oh. And _art_! I'm really good at that, too! Almost as good as mum. Almost, but not quite. She's got skills, I've got tenacity." He pulled his knees up to his chest. "I love to run, but I'm not very good at sports. Terrible at it, actually. Can't even ride a bike, yet."

"Hold on hold on hold on," Ten chanted. "What? You _can't_ ride a _bike_?"

Gallifrey shook his head. "Nope. Tried once. Ended up with enough boo-boo's that mum pretty much banned me completely from ever trying again. Misread the whole braking thing, me. I squeezed, wheels locked and I did a Superman over the handlebars." He spread out his arms and made a _whoosh_ sound. "Straight into the road."

Rose winced at the memory. "He was so banged up. Looked like he walked through a grater with all the cuts and scrapes he had on him. Ended up having to take him to the hospital for stitches and to check out his head." She inhaled a deep breath. "And then, of course, they had to check his vitals, didn't they? So off we ran." She swallowed down the remainder of the memory. "So. No. I banned him from ever trying to ride ever again."

Ten's eyes were wide and full of regret. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there, Rose."

"You would've been if you could," she answered softly and with an expression free of accusation or blame. "In spirit you kind've were, you know. What, with all the running all the time."

"I'm so sorry, Rose," he breathed sadly. "I wasn't there for any of it, was I? I wasn't there for you, for Gal, for any of it." He looked between them both. "I've missed so much."

Rose forced a smile on and tried to act like it all really didn't matter to her. "We're together now, no sense in dwelling on the past." She winked. "Not when we have our whole future together."

He nodded slowly. "Yes. I suppose you're right."

His slow delivery gave Gallifrey pause. He looked worriedly into Ten's face. "Because we do, yeah? We do have our forevers together, right?" His eyes blinked rapidly. "Right?"

Ten snatched him into his chest in a hug. He pressed his cheek into his hair and nodded his head. "Of course we do, Gal. We absolutely have a whole lot of forever together. Eternity." He sniffed. "And because we're semi-immortal beings you'n me, our _forever_ is a pretty long time."

"It'd better be."

"I just wish I'd been there for it all, Gal. That's all." He held him tighter. "I've missed so much: Your first word. Your first steps. When you used the toilet by yourself for the first time. Your first tooth … all of it."

Gallifrey grinned against his father's chest and then wriggled for freedom. "Gimme a mo," he ordered as he finally struggled free and jumped to his feet. "Just a min, okay? Be right back."

Ten frowned, but nodded. "Oh-kay."

Gallifrey grabbed at Rose's hand. "Come with me, mum!"

Rose peeped as she was tugged into the hallway, but didn't protest being grabbed by her son. She followed behind his pitter-pattering feet on the floor at a run until they reached the console room. As she noticed them nearing the doors, she had to put a halt to it.

"Gal, stop."

He stopped abruptly in his run, but kept his hands tightly curled around hers and leaned backward as through to pull her another step forward. "We can't. Not yet."

"Why the hurry," she queried with a confused frown. "Where could you possibly want to go?"

"I have to get back to the school," he begged. "My bag's there. I have to get it."

Rose's frown deepened. "Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

"No-o-o-o," he whined as he tugged harder and leaned down deeper. "I have to get it. I have to, before someone else gets their dirty claws on it and I lose everything."

Rose winced just slightly. Gallifrey's bag. It was a ratty old thing that he'd had for years. Ig was like his security blanket, and he was very rarely ever seen without it. That old bag was the only thing that had survived their years of running and hopping and hiding. It was his most prized possession and he filled it with things that meant the most to him.

Not once had she ever looked in it – no, that was Gallifrey's only little bit of privacy – but she knew that whatever it contained was terribly important to the young boy.

"I'm not going to be able to convince you to wait until morning, am I?"

He shook his head. "No. I need it. I need it now. Dad's sad, and things in there are going to make him happy."

"Your dad's fine," Rose assured him with a smile. "A little melancholy because he's missed a few of our memories, but he knows we're going to make more, so many more together."

Gallifrey grinned a terrifically wide smile. "But that's just it. He isn't missing our memories, mum." He tugged. "They're all in the bag. Well. The _good_ ones anyway." His pleading eyes worked their innocent and desperate magic on her resolve. "It's all in there, mum. I think he needs to see it. He needs to know that every day of my life he was there. He really was." He cupped his hand over her cheek and gave her his last ditch best effort at adorable. "Because we thought of him all the time mum. That's how. He was there, and he needs to know. I've got pictures. I've got USB keys full of videos. Even my first ever painting of the TARDIS – admittedly a bad painting, but my first one nonetheless."

Rose sniffed.

Gallifrey whimpered. "Please?" He widened his big brown eyes and pouted out his bottom lip. "Please?"

"I'm immune to cute, Gal," Rose whispered with a smile. "Just so you know."

He fluttered his eye lashes at her. "Please?"

Rose exhaled a sharp breath and slumped. Defeated. Absolutely defeated by puppy dog eyes and a pouted bottom lip. "Both of you," she accused. "You have this unearthly power. Both of you. I can't resist no matter how hard I try."

Gallifrey ducked with a victorious grin and tugged at her hand. "Then stop trying. Come on. Let's go. We can scoot off and be back, oh, in about ten, fifteen minutes?"

"Fine," Rose moaned in response. "Fine then, you little marauder. Let's go get your bag." She looked at the TARDIS console, that was flashing a warm amber colour. "If they start looking for us, just let them know we've had to head back to Farrington to get something for Gal." She let the pulse hum twice and then stepped through the TARDIS doors and onto the bitter cold English country side. She gave a shudder and frowned toward her child. "Gal. Are you sure?"

"Please, mum?"

"Okay," she sighed as she rubbed her hands up and down her arms. She took an uneasy look around them as they left the safety of the TARDIS behind them and walked toward the school. "It's kind've creepy out here."

"Oh don't be a sally, Mum," Gallifrey said with a chuckle. "What could possibly be out here on a night like tonight….?"


	47. Confrontation

A/N: Just a quicky .. and hopefully will have another quicky added later today (very quiet day it seems - oh, shit, now that I've said that!)

I did a lot of editing on this chapter. A lot of what I had written I knew would offend certain sensibilities, and rather than a notes bit with the "all opinions expressed here blah blah" disclaimer, I just omitted it completely. So it might skip and jump a little.

Is Rose cruel in this bit? Yeah ... she just might be a little bit... but she's proven herself to be a hotly jealous lass in the past, so I think it fits. And heck, this woman snogged her Doctor and made Gal cry. So yeah. You go, Rosie! snicker.

~~oooOOOooo~~

 _Lights out_ never really happened at Farrington. Sure, the corridors in the residential section were darkened and the bulk of the overhead lighting in the main sections were darkened, but there was always lighting in the medical wing and main lobby.

This was a welcome sight to both Gallifrey and Rose as they stepped in through the main doors and tried to shake off the cold from the outside. The smell of burning wood in the many fireplaces spread throughout the complex were instantly warming – even if the actual heat took a little longer to take out that chill in their bones.

"Where's your bag," Rose questioned urgently with a look up at the large wall mounted clock above one of the more grandiose fireplaces in the lobby. "We've already been gone for twenty minutes, and you know at least one of them is going to be looking for us by now."

"Nah," Gallifrey drawled with a grin. "They have a disembowelled K-9 to put back together." He had to chuckle at her groan. "And being that they are both oh-so-clever and have to be the cleverest one in the room at any time, well... They've probably moved to opposite corners in a sulk that – for once – they aren't the only smart one in the room."

Rose initially bit at her lip to hide a smile of total agreement, but squashed it with a clearing of her throat. "Gal. That's your _Dad_ you're talking about." She rubbed out the last of the cold from her arms. "At least try to have some respect."

He grinned a cheeky little smile at her and dipped his head into his shoulders with a chuckle. "Tell me I'm wrong, mum."

"Right or wrong," she chided. "He's still your dad and you still need to be respectful toward him."

He slouched repentantly. "Sorry, mum." He walked into her side and pressed his head against her arm. He looked up at her with his most adorable expression. "Still love me?"

Rose circled her arm around his shoulders and bent to kiss the top of his head. "More than anything," she vowed softly. "Now go get your bag and meet me at medical. I'm going to grab my hat and jacket – which I neglected to do when I left here in the first place."

Gallifrey took a couple of steps backward and gave her a wink as he opened up his jacket. "I would've offered you mine, but there is a bit of a size issue."

"If that's your polite way of telling me that I'm fat…"

"No," he defended quickly. "That's my way of reminding you that I'm eight and you're twenty nine." He lifted his hand to indicate his own height, and then raised it high over his head, stretching up high as he rolled onto his toes for dramatic effect. "Big difference there."

"Your jacket's from Gallifrey, yeah?"

"TARDIS gave it to me, I think," he answered with a curious tone. "Or dad did. Neither of them are admitting to dressing me up like him."

Rose pursed her lips to consider it. She tilted her head to one side and then smiled. "I'll go with TARDIS on that one. The Doctor likes his own style, but it's just that – his own. I can't see him being too eager to share it…"

"Yeah?" he challenged. "Well. Who do you think knotted my tie and did my hair? Gel mum. He put gel in there. I don't wear gel and back comb… I didn't even know what back combing was until he pulled out the comb and went at it." He turned to look at his reflection in the glass of a trophy cabinet on the wall. "Still. I have to say I look pretty good. Handsome, even."

"Yeah," Rose said with a laugh. "For a skinny little streak of nothing, you look very dashing."

He tipped his head and shoulders to look back at her with a wide grin as he straightened the knot of his tie. "You think he's all hot and sexy. And I look just like him. Which means I am, too."

"Go and get your bag," Rose moaned with her face in her hand before he could continue. "Please."

He walked backwards making kissing sounds in the air. "Eager to get back to get all kissy-kissy with dad?"

"Oh," she growled playfully. "You are _not_ teasing me, are you?"

He spun to put his back to her and wrapped his arms tightly around himself to mimic a couple in an embrace. "Oh. Doctor. I love you. My big strong handsome Time Lord."

This was probably one of those times that laughing at his antics wouldn't be the most appropriate reaction, but she couldn't help but giggle quietly – especially at the continued kissing sounds he was making.

"Gallifrey Tyler," she called with mock affront. "Stop that this instant."

He twisted his neck to look at her over his shoulder and kissed one last time at the air.

Rose narrowed her eyes at her child and let her jaw hang dramatically at his playful defiance. She gave a growl and stomped her foot on the ground as if to make chase. Gallifrey let up a yelp, a little squeal, and then tore up the stairs in escape with a thunder of panicked footfalls and the swish of his coat billowing out behind him.

"Yeah, you better run," she called up after him. She then shook her head with a smile and turned to walk toward the medical office. Her eyes danced from side to side as she muttered with amusement under her breath the remainder of her threat. "I'll kick your scrawny little butt into next week. Won't need a TARDIS for time travel, oh no. Mum's foot, Gal's backside, all the time travel equipment needed."

"What was that Miss Tyler – or is it Mrs. Smith, now?"

Rose let out a yelp of surprise and held at her chest as she panted a little. "Miss Redfern. My God you gave me a fright."

"Still using the Lord's name in vain, I see," she chided with a roll of her eyes as Rose crossed the threshold into the room. "Be wary that you don't find yourself victim to the Lord's smite for the misuse of his name."

Rose shrugged. "New Testament," she sang. "There's no more smiting – just forgiveness."

"Really?"

"Is there a reason that you're here this evening, Matron," Rose asked quickly in order to prevent any further opening for religious discussion. "You spent the day in here – I expect you're eager to head back to bed."

"I'm waiting for someone," she breathed with a hard sigh. "And he does seem to have gone astray this evening."

"Mr. Smith," Rose half growled. "You're waiting for him, yeah?"

"Where's your son?" Joan shot in quickly. "Is he here on the school grounds, or is he with his father this evening?"

Rose levered a firm stare of indignance toward Joan. "The whereabouts of my child are my concern," she answered carefully. "Not yours or anyone elses." She let one side of her mouth tip up in a half smile. "With all due respect to you, of course."

"I take it the child is in safe hands then," Joan countered with a narrowing in her eyes. "At least I would hope that he is. He did seem quite upset when he left Mr. Smith's quarters this evening."

"I'm sure if I saw the same thing that he did, then I'd be a little upset myself," Rose answered coolly. "Gal. Well. Gal is rather fond of Mr. Smith and so to see…"

"Is Mr. Smith your child's father?"

Rose's eyes widened even as her brows fell into a frown. "I hardly think that's any of your business."

"It's most definitely my business," she snapped back. "This school and all of her faculty are subject to scrutiny and must be free of scandal at all costs. If Mr. Smith is a man of ill-standing, who laid with and created life with a woman and then abandoned her, then we must be informed so that we can react accordingly."

Rose cracked her neck to one side and then rolled her head on her neck to calm herself. "Is it really because of school policy, Miss Redfern, or is it because you have designs upon Mr. Smith and don't want to have to deal with his illegitimate child?" She held her hand up before Joan could respond and turned her head from her in a dismissive shake. "No. Never mind. Don't answer that question. I know full well what your intentions are with John."

"And what might those be, Miss Tyler?"

"Mrs. Smith," Rose corrected sharply. "As in Mrs. _John Smith_." Her brow tightened so see less a look of surprise and more a smug and pleased expression briefly pass across Joan's eyes. That look quickly fell to feigned surprise as the woman held her hand to her chest and gasped with hurt.

"It can't be true."

"It is," Rose clarified cautiously. The cautiousness fell away and warning took hold. Rose advanced a slow stalk toward her. "He is the father of my child, and he is my husband." She stopped her approach. "So do your dignity a favour and back off."

Joan actually managed a smile. "That's a little cruel of you, don't you think? Why. Why it's common knowledge that Mr. Smith and I are very familiar with each other."

"That's an interesting way to put it," Rose said with a grunt.

"…and you seem to take such pleasure in intending to break my heart with your cruel words," Joan continued.

Rose didn't smile nor frown, but she gave Joan a steeled glare. "I'm a very jealous woman," she warned. "And not a particularly kind one when I think my son's happiness is being interfered with." She swallowed and slowly blinked her eyes. Something really didn't feel right with this woman, Rose could feel it in a shudder up and down her spine. "And you trying to seduce his father definitely qualifies as interference."

"So you confirm the parentage of your son and that Mr. Smith was the man who fathered him?"

"I can give you the time, date and location of his conception if you wish me to."

"Relative to which time, Mrs. Smith?"

All of the air escaped Rose's lungs at that moment. "Shit," she cursed low.

"The problem with jealousy," Joan lectured, "is that it makes a person irrational." She smiled a creepy smile of victory. "Irrationality does tend to lead make its victim fall to pitiful depths to make them say and do things that someone in control of their emotions typically would not."

"Gal," she breathed under her breath in calling. Her head twisted on her neck to call over her shoulder. "Gal!"

Joan continued to speak in subdued and lecturing tones. "Such as confirming the identity of a Time Lord in hiding."

"Oh no."

"Although why he chose to hide himself and not his _own child_ , I won't understand. I suppose the duty of a father to his child on Gallifrey is vastly different to anywhere else in the universe." She shrugged. "But it is beside the point, really. We have the child, and will force his father to emerge also." She inhaled a hiss through her teeth. "We only came to find ourselves a single Time Lord, but to find two of them? We'll live for all eternity and beyond with the power of two."

"No," Rose breathed after a swallow. "You're not going to get him. You can't have either of them. I'll die before I let you anywhere near them."

Joan barked a laugh. "Oh. I fully intend on making sure that you do just that."

Rose paced slowly backward toward the door to the office. "I won't die so easy."

"I certainly hope not."

There was a sudden, frightened call from her son in the lobby.

"Mum!"

Rose immediately spun in place and launched out of the doors. "Gal!"


	48. Torsanocolalite

A/N: Remember how I said: "oh, quiet afternoon, nothing on the go"? Yeah ... shouldn't have said that. I was Murphy in a past life, I know it!

But I still managed another chapter out of it... :)

Hope you like ... I've introduced shit to fan in this chapter ... oh and speaking of. there is a warning for the dropping of the F'Bomb. Only once ... in a line totally stolen from my school days (I can actually remember back THAT FAR?!) when one of my chums accidentally dropped the S'Bomb in class in front of the teacher and in her trying to save face managed to inadvertantly drop several more... :)

~~oooOOOooo~~

With his beloved knapsack properly and quite rightly perched on his back, Gallifrey Tyler sang quietly to himself as he skipped in a dance down each step of the staircase. It was a side to side kind of skip that had him sway with each slow step down. He jumped with both feet onto the last two steps to take him to the landing and used that moment to pose in a manner that was a cross between John Travolta, Elvis and Freddie Mercury.

Unfortunately for his bag, however, the sudden movement of his arm snapping upward to fist at the air was too much for it to bear, and one of the shoulder straps snapped. The heavy bag then tugged heavily on his shoulder, which made him stumble and accidentally drop his bag to the ground.

"Oh _really_?" he moaned to himself as a couple of items spilled out from the broken zipper on the front pocket and rolled across the floor. He pulled the bag onto one shoulder and dropped to his knees to crawl quickly to retrieve a small sphere that was on a roll toward a cabinet.

"Oh no you don't," he muttered as he scampered on his hands and knees in chase of the item. He snatched out his hand and curled his fingers to scoop it into his palm. With a smile of pure victory he held it against his chest and slowly raised his head.

A grin shone through the darkness that had his hearts practically stop inside his chest. His smile fell and the clutch on his little sphere tightened.

"Well. Well. Well. If it isn't little Gallifrey Tyler," Bains taunted with a sneer. "Here I was thinking that you were clever enough to hide and stay hidden once you got away from me."

Gallifrey remained seated on his butt with his hands held protectively around the little sphere, but tried his best not to look too frightened by the boy currently towering over him wearing a dirty evil smirk. "That would make me a coward," he snapped in response. "And I'm not scared of you."

"Yeah," he corrected with a huff. "You are."

"No," Gallifrey reaffirmed. "I'm not."

Bains circled around the child on the floor. "You know who I am. You know what I'm going to do. Yet..." He chuckled. "Yet you still chose to come back here, to the school, anyway." He stopped and clicked his tongue as he sneered down at Gallifrey. "You are either very brave or very _very_ stupid."

"Well if I'm gonna be honest, Bains, then I've got to admit that I actually forgot about you." He winced somewhat apologetically. "Sorry about that. And you know, when you consider that I do have a bit of an eidetic memory, for me to forget you is a bit of an impressive feat." He cautiously drew himself to a stand. "Or it just means that you're pretty forgettable. Either, or."

Bains rushed forward to bring himself practically chest to chest with young Gallifrey. He growled down the length of his nose toward the youngster. "Time Lord Arrogance…"

Gallifrey's thumbnail scraped at a small ridge on his sphere. "Creepy shape changer from a planet I don't even know about yet stupidity."

Bains sneered a filthy grin. "I'm not the one who walked himself directly into the wolf's den."

"Oh," Gallifrey huffed in response with an equally filthy grin. He even gave a waggle of an eyebrow. "Are you very sure about that?"

"I'm not the one overpowered, outnumbered and trapped, am I?"

Gallifrey stared at Bains for a very long moment without speaking. His expression was firm, unshifting, and unreadable. He appeared as more of a statue than a living sentient creature, and Bains could quite easily have been forgiven for thinking that he'd scared the child into a catatonic state. But suddenly, and without warning, Gallifrey blinked and seemed to relax his entire body. He even shook out his arms and wriggled his head on his neck as he exhaled a nonchalant breath.

"Trapped? Well. I wouldn't really say that I was trapped. No. To suggest that I am trapped would imply that you have me in an actual mechanical device – or crudely crafted net." He held out his arms either side of himself. "But I'm not. Look at me. I'm free – as free as a Flutterwing"

Bains snatched hold of his arm and tugged him closer, forcing Gallifrey to rise onto his toes. "Or I just grab you."

"Yep," Gallifrey peeped. "That, too."

"Nice to see that your arrogance took a nosedive there, Time Lord."

"Time _Tot_ , actually," Gallifrey corrected as he rocked on his toes and battled to maintain his balance under the hold and the glare of Bains. "I'm not old enough to have earned the whole _Lord_ designation yet. Reckon I'd have to have gone through at least one regeneration to get that. Too young to have gone through that. Too young, and I have an overprotective mum making sure that I don't get a boo-boo bad enough to put me anywhere near a regeneration." His eyes widened. "Got close, once, I think."

"Will you shut up?"

"Well. There's really no need to be rude, you know," Gallifrey huffed. He chewed at his cheek a moment and writhed a little against Bains' grasp. "So what are you doing to do with me now that you have me?"

Bain's grin, which was creepy all on its own, now deepened in the creep factor as his brows fell, but his eyes widened. "Wouldn't _you_ like to know?"

Gallifrey shuddered. "Well, yeah. That's why I'm askin'."

"I'm taking you to my mother," Bain's hissed into his ear. "And then she'll decide the best way for us to harness all of that Time Lord power of yours. And then our family will live on forever."

Gallifrey's jaw dropped as realization hit. "Ooooohhhhhh."

"You get it now?"

Gallifrey practically laughed. "Yeah. Course I do. You want to destroy my family so yours can live on. Yep. Totally get it. Totally get you." His grin was wide. "I'd do the same thing, really. Nothing more important than your family and those you love. Trust me. I know. I really hear you." He pulled at his arm to test whether or not Bains was relaxing his grip at all. He wasn't. "So if you require the energy of a Time Lord to power up your little family unit, then I'm gonna guess that you're pretty up to speed o Time Lords in general?"

"Do I really need to be?"

Gallifrey looked a little shocked. "Well you _should_ , really. I mean Time Lords can be tricky little things to deal with if you let your guard down around them. Especially members of the Prydonian Chapter – full of untrustworthy and sneaky Lords I can tell you." He shrugged. "Should know. Am one. Dad's one. Whole family's Prydonian actually."

Bains huffed as he tugged Gallifrey to follow him toward medical. "Keep talking, little Time Lord. Your days of rambling will soon be over."

"Unlikely," Gallifrey said with an amused snort. "But anyway. Back to sneaky Time Lords. When I was on Gallifrey with Dad, I met a young Tot around my age from the chapterhouse Stillhaven. Pretty sneaky little thing, always managing to get away from his tutor during study. "Lincildekaglavi. That was his name. The kid, not the tutor. The tutor was called…."

"Will you shut up?" Bains shook his head. "I really hope that feeding off your power doesn't require you to be alive and kicking. I think I'd forego the feed and let myself die off in silence if I had to listen to you endlessly natter on."

Gallifrey sniffed and slumped. "Fine then. Don't hear the rest of the story, regardless of how important it's gonna be to you later."

"I highly doubt it." Bains tugged him around the corner that would take them into the main medical office. "Mother of mine will be pleased that I managed to find you."

"Yeah," Gallifrey drawled as he noted the shadows cast into the hallway that indicated his mother was inside the room. "Mine might be, too, actually." He spun in place and leaned backward to attempt to pry himself free of Bain's hold. "For your own safety, I'd recommend you let me go. If mum comes out and sees you getting all handsy with me, it's not going to be very pretty."

Bains only held at him tighter. "You're not going anywhere."

"Then you leave me no choice," Gallifrey warned. "I didn't wanna resort to this, just so you know. But you've put me in a place and I have to do it."

"Do what?"

Gallifrey brought up the little sphere and held it between his fingertips. He rolled it lightly to allow it to glisten a polished metal glimmer in the lamplight of the corridor. "This," he admitted. "This cute little thing. Well. It's not as cute as it looks. Quite nasty what it does, actually. In Gallifreyan its name is pronounced _Torsanocolalite._ Got it from a Time Tot named Lincildekaglavi to be able to escape if I ever got snagged by something big and ugly…" He looked Bains up and down. "Like you."

"Give me that," Bains snarled as he snatched the sphere from Gallifrey's hand. "Do you relly think that I'm stupid enough to fall…"

"What was that?" Gallifrey asked as he cupped his hand around his ear. "Can't hear you. Can you speak up? No? Cat got your tongue? Speechless?" His voice thickened to a tone of disgust. "Or are you simply experiencing a hit to your synapses that is disallowing your neurotransmitters to properly diffuse across the intervening sectors of your brain and fit into the receptors of your target neuron and is thereby preventing you from moving or speaking?"

Bain's eyes moved, but the rest of him didn't. He was completely frozen in place.

"See," Gallifrey said with a huff as he pulled his arm free of Bains. "This is where you listening to my rambling would have been a good thing for you. That thing in your hand. The Torsanocolalite given to me by a fellow Time Tot. Well, it was specifically set to my personal genetic matrix, and when I say specifically set, I mean it has one of my hair strands in there. This means that if I'm holding it and it can register my genetic code it's a completely inert and harmless little ball of shiny that will sing me a little song if I want it to." He brushed himself down and resituated the seat of his bag.

"Now. If someone else takes it from me once I've activated the panic setting…" He rolled onto his toes and leaned in to point at the item flashing in Bain's fingers. "Which would be that line there. The only flaw in an otherwise perfect spherical shape." He tolled back down onto his feet. "So if I activate that setting and it suddenly registers someone else's genetic code. Well. It's not real friendly, is it? Zaps you with a very specific electronic signal that moves straight into your brain – no matter which body part is holding it." His head tilted downward and he frowned. "Now. Of course it doesn't lead to a permanent condition – that would just be reckless of me, now wouldn't it? Nope. Full movement typically returns about ten seconds or so after the charge is depleted or it is turned off, which…" He hummed and frowned as he looked at the door to the medical office, and the distance between that and the exit to the building. "Which just might give me and mum enough of a head start to go find dad and have him introduce you to a whole new level of get your ass handed to you by a Time Lord."

He lifted his hand and hovered his fingertips over the top of the sphere. "I mean, I could really leave you like this and go find Dad so we can all take off in the TARDIS and disappear. But I really liked Lincildekaglavi and it was really sweet of him to give this to me." His eyes lifted to look into Bains'. "So I'm gonna need this back." He gave him a condescending look. "Now. When I take this off and you start to feel movement again. Do me a favour. Don't follow." He pouted. "Okay? You stay. Stay right here."

Gallifrey tightened his hold on his unbroken shoulder strap of his bag and planted his feet firmly into the ground to give him the absolute best take-off possible. Ten seconds really wasn't a long time frame, and he and mum needed to get as far away as possible. He poised his fingers and twiddled them just slightly. "Mum," he called out, hoping she'd appear fast.

"Mum?"

Gallifey winced and inhaled deep. He let out a sharp cry for his mother and then snatched the sphere from Bains' fingers. He had that little ball in his coat pocket and was on his way within a heartbeat, and by the time he flew past the Medical Office, his mother was through the doorway and into the corridor.

She snatched his hand in a tight hold before he could even think to reach for hers, and both of them burst through the school doors to leap down the small flight of stairs.

"Gal. Are you okay, baby?"

He could feel her tugging him in a request for them to stop running so that she could check him over, but he shook his head. "I'm fine, Mum. But we have to keep running. Run. Just run. Okay?" He panted as he felt his mother's hand tighten around his. "Promise mum. I'm okay. Just a run in with a shapeshifter who want's Time Lord for dinner…"

"You too?"

"You as well, Mum? Who?"

"Never mind," Rose answered with a pant and a grunt. "Let's just go back to the TARDIS and find your dad, okay?"

The Doors to Farrington flew open with a loud bang. Gallifrey's shudder at the sound made him stumble just slightly and he let out a yelp. "Oh shit, Mum. I mean. Oh fuck. I mean shit I mean fuck I mean … I didn't mean to say that…."

Rose looked over her shoulder and let out her own muted swear at the glares of both Joan and Bains from the doorway. It was only a breath before they were on the chase behind them. Rose tugged at her child's hand, apologising for her grip.

"I know you're running as hard as you can Gal and are getting tired, but I need you to try just that little bit harder, sweetheart."

"Funny," he said with a pant as he ran hard at her side. "I was going to say the same thing to you."

"Extra speed Gal?"

"Always got some."

They both let out a simultaneous cry as though to push themselves harder and faster. Rustling in the bushes beside them, and a dark looming shadow that seemed to draw closer to them at a speed much faster than their run, gave both of them immediate pause. One pair of Converse shoes, and one pair of leather boots skidded in the dirt road to slow them to a hurried stop. Gallifrey's lighter form made his skid much longer than hos mothers, and Rose was forced to flail her arms ahead of her in order to grab him to pull him safely into her chest.

Gallifrey gasped in panted breaths over a dry tongue and tried hard to swallow as he focused on the movement ahead of them. He scrambled his feet in the dirt and pressed harder against his mother's belly at the sight that emerged from the darkness ahead of them.

"Oh no. No no no," he chanted with a shake of his head as he clutched onto his mother's arms and stepped back into her belly. "No no no no. This can't be happening."

Rose's terror matched Gallifrey's panic. She fiercely held her child against her chest and covered him as best as she possibly could as the entire roadway and surrounding paddocks began to fill up with walking, living scarecrows.

"Oh God," she muttered under her breath. "How am I going to get us out of this one, Gal?"


	49. Scarecrows and Mrs Smith

A/N: If you're old enough to get that reference in the chapter title ... you're awesome.

Okay. It's official. I suck at writing this.

It's really hard to subdue Bad Wolf enough to let the Doctor come in and be the hero, ya know.

Really hard...

Apparently my child has given himself a new mission whenever he gets all frustrated and annoyed. He starts searching around my house throwing stuff around and generally making a bigger mess than normal with no real apparent purpose... He was questioned the other night by my Time Lord as to just what was he looking for ... in a snap and with a snarly little voice he answered: "The Portal to Gallifrey" and then went right back to it.

I'm not gonna lie. I actually considered letting him continue to search that way, because if he finds it I'm totally in for the ride... HAHA...

Sorry, where was I? Oh. Yes. The fic. I hope that you enjoy...

~~oooOOOooo~~

The echoing slap of a slow clap of hands danced across the space between them and seemed to tap at Rose's shoulder in a request for her to turn around.

She didn't want to. Oh no she didn't. For a brief moment she analyzed just who was the greater threat and to whom she wanted to turn their backs to. Obviously the scarecrows were under the control of someone, and as much as she was loathe to admit it, the control had to be held by the two body snatching aliens loudly making their approach behind them.

Rose closed her eyes and let out a breath as she sought to cling tightly to her defiance and courage – if only to make her son know she had it in hand and that he was going to be safe.

"Scarecrows?" she called with adequate incredulity in her voice as she turned around slowly with her son still clutched tightly against her chest. "Clowns might have been a better choice. They have a much higher creep factor than a scarecrow does."

"I dunno, Mum," Gallifrey mumbled lightly. "I don't know that I'll ever be able to watch the Wizard of OZ ever again and not get nightmares."

"Shhh, baby," she cooed softly. "Let me handle this one." Her eyes were locked on the approaching figures of Joan and Bains, but she kept the scarecrow's movements tightly in her peripheral line of sight. "You're not gettin' him," she snarled out.

"Oh," Joan replied inside a throaty, breathy, chuckle. "Yes we will."

Rose held onto Gallifrey a little bit tighter. "You'll have to kill me to get to him…"

"That was our intention," Joan breathed with a roll of her eyes. "Since we really don't have use for you, nor the patience to deal with your protests we really don't have any other choice, do we?"

Gallifrey whimpered lightly. Rose stood taller. "Well. Don't think I'm not going down with a fight, yeah?"

Bains wringed his hands together and smiled his lazy, filthy smile. "Oh. I certainly hope so." He flicked his gaze toward Gallifrey, who hid in the protective curl of his mother's arms. "I made you a promise, Time Lord, that I would kill her." He winked. "And your carelessness has given me that opportunity."

Little brown eyes darkened with fury. "What did I tell you about threatening my mum?" he growled as he stalked out of Rose's caring hold. "Noone threatens my Mum!"

Rose cried out Gallifrey's name and quickly tugged him back in against her belly. "Don't, Gal."

"No, Mum," he argued petulantly as he struggled to get out of her hold. "He threatened you…"

"And it'll be up to your dad to answer to that threat," she countered. She lowered her mouth to his ear. "Gal. I need you to run, okay? I'll hold them all off as best I can, but you need to run, run with all of your might, and find your dad."

"I'm not leavin' you," he seethed through his teeth.

"You'll do as you're told."

"This is one time you're not gonna make me, Mum."

Joan chuckled a low breathy laugh. "There's no sense in planning an escape." She swept her hand in the air to indicate the gathering of scarecrows forming a tight border around them. "You're surrounded. There is no escape."

Rose remained in her stoop over Gallifrey, but raised her eyes to the woman. "I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you." A lazy smile to match the one worn by Bains stretched across her cheeks. "You really don't know what lengths I'll go to to protect my son."

"Mum. No. Please."

Joan rolled her eyes. "You're defenseless," she answered back with a moan. "No weapons. No back up. No hope." Her nonchalant look hardened. "And the lack of hope is so demoralising isn't it?"

"There's always hope," Rose countered softly. "And sometimes that's the greatest weapon of them all."

Bains actually spat a little in the speed by which his laugh exploded from his mouth. Joan passed him a glare of annoyance. The look was short lived as she passed her gaze back toward Rose and Gallifrey. "Yes," she droned. "Hope is a fine weapon indeed. However." She pointed again at her scarecrow army. "It's not all that effective against _actual_ weapons such as these."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Rose half whispered in response. She let her hands twitch on Gallifrey's shoulder and leaned down to him again. "Go get your father, Gal. Run. Please just run."

He remained steadfast in his absolute defiance. "Not without you."

"Gal. Please."

"Together," he growled as he steeled his stance and locked his little fists tight at his sides. "Like always, mum. Together. You 'n me."

The agonized expression on Rose's face almost broke both his little hearts, but he was going to stand firm on his decision. He reaffirmed that vow with a whispered: "Together."

"Bravery," Joan remarked with a smile. "So unlike any other Time Lord I've ever encountered." She let her face contort into an expression of condescension toward the boy. "What a shame I have to kill you, little boy."

"You really _don't_ ," he ventured with a swallow. "We can say our goodbyes right now. No hard feelings. Just buh-bye and all that. You go on your way, we can go on ours." He looked at her with an eager nod of his head. "Sounds good, yeah?"

"I'm afraid not," she spat back inside a growl. Her fingers snapped loudly across the bitter chill of the night air. "Take the boy and bring him to me."

Gallifrey peeped as Rose snatched him into her chest with enough ferocity to hamper his attempts to actually breathe. Her hold on him only tightened as the scarecrows broke their rigid formation to surround the pair completely. Hands. So many hands reached forward in to the closing circle in a grab for the boy. Hands of straw and sticks that jabbed and scratched at Rose's skin.

"No!" she yelled fiercely. "You're not takin' him!"

Rose could hear the struggled panting of her son, and could feel the terror running through him. He didn't dare whimper to show that fear, but he felt it so thoroughly that she could smell it on him.

"Gal," she whispered softly. "I'm sorry."

"We can fight this, Mum," he begged on a broken voice. "Together, yeah? The old team, you 'n me. We've gotten out of worse."

"I'm going to tell you to run," she ordered him firmly. "I'll get a break between these things for you and for God's sake, Gallifrey, you are going to run like you've never run before. Get to the TARDIS and get safe!" She winced at the stab of another straw-filled hand at her arm and shoved her way through between the clumsy and staggering bodies of two scarecrows.

Rose dropped a fast kiss onto Gallifrey's head and then pushed him forward and away from her into the clearing ahead of them. "I love you, Gal. Now RUN! Please, just run."

Gallifrey fell to his knees and quickly rolled onto his butt too look up at his mother. He shook his head as his eyes filled with panicked and frightened tears. "No, mum. Not without you." He moved onto his knees to scramble back toward her, but jumped back when a pair of scarecrows moved in to grab at his mother and drive her to her knees.

She begged him to run and don't look back, but the youngster refused. He shook his head and chanted _no_ over and over again as he pulled his bag in front of him and began to rummage through its contents.

"Gal! Please!"

Gallifrey found his quarry, but held off on victoriously announcing such. He ignored the approach of a group of scarecrows as he thumbed in his passcode and began furiously thumbing at the keyboard. "Don't worry, Mum," he called. "We'll be good. We'll be okay." Straw hands came around his arms to grab him from behind, and Gallifrey let out a startled yelp. That yelp contained a call for both of his parents, and shocked him enough to drop the phone from his hands. He struggled with flailing arms and lets to get free of the scarecrow's hold. "Let me go!"

An aggrieved bellow of a sound thundered out from beyond the mass of straw bodies, and Gallifrey immediately found his freedom. The arms that were around him seemed to vanish as though nothing and he fell to the ground in a loud heap of moans and groans. He didn't take a single moment to think before he scrambled on his hands and knees across the grass to get his phone. He felt a hand grasp at his ankle and yelped again as he fell to his belly and was tugged backward. That tether, too, fell away to nothing, and Gallifrey surged forward once again in a hurried scramble across the grass.

He did let up a yip of triumph when the tips of his fingers met with the face of his phone and he stabbed at the red button on the screen. He snapped his fingers back in time to avoid a cloth booted straw foot that slammed down hard on the face of it. His eyes widened with horrific speed when that booted foot and anything else attached to it suddenly disappeared inside a smattering of glittering golden sparks.

"Oh no," he breathed with dawning horror. "No."

"Gallifrey," his mother called to him in a dual-toned voice. "I said run."

Gallifrey turned on his knees in the grass to cast a look toward his mother. At the vision of her standing alone on the paddock, her eyes aglow and her hair whipping at her face as though in the midst of a windstorm made the youngster choke back a sob. "No, mum." He sniffed hard. "Mummy. Please no."

"Run!" she ordered him again.

"No!" he bellowed in response. Gallifrey leapt to his feet and ran headlong across the grass toward her. "Ground me for the rest of my lives if you want, but I'm not going anywhere." With forced bravery, he took up position at his mother's side and even put up his little fists as though preparing himself for a fight. "You're never in your right head when you're like this anyway," he muttered under his breath. "You need me."

Gallifrey whimpered a little, but Rose remained ethereally stoic as the trees and bushes to the edge of the small paddock rustled either side of them.

"More?" Rose queried almost tiredly as more scarecrows emerged from the bushes. "Really. With all your talk about cowardly Time Lords I thought you'd be a little more proactive in capturing a youngster." Her head tilted slowly to one side. "Faced with nothing but a woman and a child and you have to call in an entire army?" She clicked her tongue. "Very disappointing."

Bains' mouth hung open, but Joan looked upon Rose with an expression of awe and curiosity. "Just what are you, then?"

"I'm a mother protecting her child," Rose answered along a musical voice. "So it might be wise for you to give it up and let us go."

Joan laughed and shook her head. "No. I don't think so." She snapped her fingers, curled a lip and pointed toward her. "Destroy that woman and bring the child to me."

"No," Rose growled as she lifted her arms so that they stretched out either side of her. "You'll leave my son alone."

Her fingertips flicked and each individual scarecrow dissipated into a shimmering gold cloud. One by one, like a chain reaction, each of them vanished.

Rose panted slightly as a tear leaked out of her eye and laid a thick trail down long her cheek. "Is that all you've got?"

Joan gave a panicked look at the small piles of dust that were once her army of scarecrows. "Get her!" she cried as yet more straw-built creatures emerged from the bushes. "Kill her – but bring the child to me."

Gallifrey looked up to his mother with fear as the brightness of her eyes flashed yet hotter to vanquish yet more scarecrows. He could see the falter in her step, the shift in her throat as she battled to swallow. Her mind was burning up, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.

"Mum," he pleaded softly. "Let it go. Please stop this."

"I can't," she answered sadly. "It's the only way…"

"Wait for Dad," he pleaded. "Just. Please stop."

She blinked the light away and dropped her gaze to her son. "I have to keep you safe, my son."

"But you're gonna burn." Tears leaked from his eyes as he begged her with a look. "And it's all my fault."

Rose smiled down at him and stroked his hair. "You're so much like him it's terrifying. You are your father's son." Her kindly look shifted to one of anger and she flashed a glare back to Joan and Bains. "And I won't let you take him. Throw as many scarecrows as you want at me – I can do this all day."

Joan sneered at her. "Then do it. There are always more where they came from."

Rose didn't need to look to know that more had appeared through the trees. She could hear their rustling and the scraping of straw against burlap. "More," she hissed with disgust. "More and more and more."

"That's right," Joan said with a sneer. "So you may as well give it up and hand him over."

"I will destroy the very fabric of all of time and space before I will allow you – or anyone – to take him from me," Rose sang darkly.

"Well I only have to destroy you, then, don't I?"

"You haven't had much luck thus far," she called back in a ghostly sing-song tone.

Although her vision was beginning to blur, Rose could see Bains break his position beside his mother in order to make a sneak advance upon them both. In his hand she could see a gun, and knew without a doubt he fully intended and knew how to use that weapon. She winced her tears, and used her remaining energy to surge forward toward him. She desperately hoped that Gallifrey was at her side as she rushed forward to snare Bains in her hand.

"You threaten my child," she snarled viciously toward Joan as she snapped out an arm and curled her hand around his throat. "And I'll take yours."

Bains struggled against her hold, but was unable to find strength enough to force her to release her grasp. "Mother," he croaked around her hand. "Mother. Help me."

Rose let out an anguished cry as she lifted her hand, with the boy still locked firmly inside her fingers, and then hauled him to the her feet. She coughed out a glittering breath and shuddered as she straddled his hips and clutched at the front of his shirt.

"Tell your scarecrow army to back off," she demanded. "Or your precious little boy will end up as nothing but an insignificant pile of dust."

"You wouldn't," Joan gasped. "You can't."

Rose's eyes drew upward, slow and unfocused. "You already know that I can."

There was a gruff male voice from behind them all, and a disgusted sound emanated from deep inside his throat. "Her power is waning, Wife of Mine," he warned. "If we keep throwing the attacks at her, then she'll exhaust herself completely and the child will be ours."

Rose twisted her head to glare over her shoulder at him. Her eyes flashed a brilliant and dazzling gold. "I wouldn't be too sure of that," she snarled as the jacket he wore over his portly body disintegrated into dust. She grinned at his gasp of shock. "Layer by layer," she warned as she drew herself up off the teenager and stalked a step toward him. "I'll strip you bare until you're nothing but a stick of ash."

"Take the child," he demanded to his gathering army of Scarecrows. "I've had enough of this insanity."

Gallifrey grabbed at his mother's arm and tugged desperately. "C'mon mum."

She stumbled slightly, but kept a glare upon the Father as the scarecrows surrounded them yet again.

Over the top of the sounds of rustling fabric, scraping and breaking straw, and the cry of Rose using every last ounce of strength she had left to dispatch the latest group of scarecrows, came the rushing winds and the whining wheezing scream of the TARDIS.

"Dad!" Gallifrey cried urgently. He tugged at the sleeve of his mother's dress. "Dad's here," he begged. "You can stop now. Mum. Stop, please."

The light in Rose's eyes dimmed and she took a moment to look across at where the TARDIS was finalizing her materialisation. "I'm seeing double. No. More than double. Triple? Quadruple?" She moaned as she dropped to her knees and clutched at her head. "It's pounding, Gal. God, it hurts. Why does it hurt so much?"

Gallifrey clutched hard at his mother's chest as looked up to the TARDIS with tears in his eyes. He had his father's name on his tongue, but swallowed that down quickly when he saw the line of blue Police Boxes stretched out along the paddock.

"Oh-Kay," he breathed worriedly to himself. "I didn't expect _that_."


	50. Security Protocol Gal-One

Sorry. I know you were expecting a big-ass showdown here (and trust me. I was ready to write it), but as I thought about it ... I asked myself the question of ... "Just how did they all know to be there?" ... Soooooooo... a fast little snippet to explain that away...

WOW and then WOW again for the reception to my previous chapter. I've never had so many reviews and comments EVER! So thank you! It made me so excited to write that it drove me nuts all weekend as I battled to find the time to be able to write (Christmas ... not a fan of the time it takes to do everything for it)... I certainly hope that this will tie you over until I can get back at it tomorrow and be able to focus a bit better.

Love the comments ... I do ... swoon... thanks.

thank you again. Only about three chapters left to go!

~~oooOOOooo~~

Meanwhile on Four's TARDIS…

The table in the galley, which was once used for eating food and sharing conversations over cups of tea, had been turned into a work table by the two Doctors. Oh, there was still a steaming hot pot of tea, several cups and saucers as well as a sugar bowl and milk jug, as well as conversation…

…But there was also a very heavy robot dog with its innards hanging out, a smattering of dirty screwdrivers of various shapes and sizes, and an array of electronic parts – half of which probably didn't even belong to the dog!

The big ship could have sighed as she trundled a small trolley into the galley to make sure that there were tools within easy reach of both of her thieves. Never mind that she already had several workshops within her belly…

"I can hear you whining," Four remarked on a sing-song breath as he swatted at the trolley for a pair of wire cutters. "But as I am sure you will agree, K-9 is in need of immediate repair and the job had already been started here in the galley."

Martha was on her knees on the table, leaning over K-9, watching the Doctors work to repair the damage done by young Gallifrey. Ordinarily she wouldn't have been so unladylike as to have crawled onto a table to kneel with her folded arms protecting her chest, which was pressed down on the body of a robot dog with her rump rising high in the air, but apparently K-9's brakes had failed and if she wasn't holding him then he'd just roll off the table completely.

…At least that's what _her_ incarnation of the Doctor had told her.

"Is he fixable?" she asked softly as she let a small pair of pliers hang from a light grasp of her fingertips.

"Of course he is," Ten answered with a wide smile. "Always fixable. He'll be in tip top shape I no time at all."

"With a few upgrades to his servo units," Four added in a voice muffled be a pair of wires hanging from his lip. "May as well while we're here."

"I see," Martha said softly. "And you still need me as his external braking system, then?"

"Sorry about that Martha," Ten said apologetically. "I thought that Gal would be the one to hold him down…"

"Especially considering that he was the one to put K-9 in this position in the first place," Four added rather gruffly. He passed a gaze toward his older incarnation. "We really should insist that our boy sit and watch us work. If not for anything else, to instruct the lad in repair and maintenance." He looked back at the belly of K-9. "If he's going to take over the TARDIS when we decide to retire, then he's going to need to know the intricacies of our machinery."

"You say that like retirement is something we _actually_ intend to do one day."

"Thirteen can go either way."

Ten winced. "That's a very good point. Either we'll end up in a young body roaring for adventure, or a crazy wrinkled old man about a second from losing his sanity completely."

"So," Martha sang inside a tease. "You're the thirteenth, then?"

"Ten and quite obviously on the downward track," Ten answered with a wink and a wide grin as he looked toward Martha, who he had to admit looked rather adorable looking down on the pair of them at work…

…Watching the two of them being oh-so-clever.

He then looked toward Romana, who found far more interest in the tea leaves inside her cup than to the brilliance of a pair of Time Lords working their technological genius on a robot dog.

Yep. That's why he loved his _Human_ companions. Oh how easily awed they were.

"So what'ya think?" He queried with a wag in his brow. "Like watching the lads at work?"

Martha gave him a smile worthy of a smitten fangirl. "Oh yes."

Four's eyes flicked toward Martha, and then to his Tenth self. After a moment he shook his head and went back in to the belly of the robot dog. "Perhaps we should have TARDIS locate Gallifrey and send him in here to assist." He frowned as he lifted his head and looked around the room. "I do have to wonder where he and his mother took off to."

"Three Time Lords working on the same project," Romana mused distractedly. "I don't know that the TARDIS will survive the ensuing fireworks." She inhaled sharply and looked toward Martha. "That would be the correct sass that you'd use here on Earth, wouldn't it?"

Martha gave a laugh. "Works for me." Her lips pursed. "What would your Gallifreyan sass be for something like that?"

Romana smiled a wide grin and then looked back down at her teacup. "Oh, there really isn't one."

Ten snorted at that. "Oh, there is…"

Four chuckled. "Yes. Indeed there is. Do you recall back at the academy when we remarked upon the foolhardiness of council and their inability to work together."

Ten dropped his jaw in remembrance. He huffed out a breathy laugh through his gaped mouth. "Ahhhh. Yes. Perhaps writing a paper on our _opinion_ of it wasn't such a great idea."

"I've read that paper," Romana admitted smoothly, smirking when she noticed the uncomfortable looks the two Doctors shared. "And I have to remark that I find it quite remarkable that you didn't use your appointment of Lord President to make the changes suggested in your paper. Ludicrous though your ideas may have been, you did have the opportunity to put them into effect." She gave him a look of challenge. "You do still have the right to claim your presidency, you know."

"You were President?" Martha queried with wide eyes.

Ten ignored Martha's look of awe and narrowed a glare at Romana. "No taa."

Martha began to hum _Hail to the Chief_ , much to the amusement of Four, who actually joined in on the melody with a whistle.

"Oh. I wouldn't be so amused if I were you," Ten gruffed. "By teasing me, she's also razzing on you."

"It's such a catchy tune," Four remarked with a shrug. "I cannot help but whistle along to it. I like it."

"I would think so," Ten shot back with a smirk. "We wrote most of it." He thought about it. "Well. By most, I mean we made a few tweaks to the original arrangement when Sanderson wasn't looking."

Four chuckled. "When he wasn't looking, indeed." He licked at his thumb and then pressed it against a pair of bare wires and began to twist them. "We managed to spill a goblet of wine over his original music sheets when he went for a bath." He smiled as he worked. "Made a right mess of it, didn't we?"

Romana raised her gaze and offered a look of intrigue.

Ten nodded. "So much so that we could barely make out most of the original composition when we were trying to rewrite it all for him." He inhaled on a high note and shrugged his shoulders. "So we had to just make it up as we went along. Fortunately we aren't completely tone deaf and were able to put together something a little better than completely awful." He pursed his lips and then swallowed. "Still. All worked out, didn't it?"

Four let out a hum of discovery. "I think I've determined the actual cause of K-9's stomach ache. Perhaps we should bring young Gallifrey in here so we can give him a little bit of instruction."

"Do you really think he _needs_ instruction," Ten queried with a quirk in his lip. "I believe our little Flubble was born with a set of pliers and screwdrivers already in his hand." He scratched a little at the stubble that was beginning to peer through his jawline and looked to the doorway of the galley. "Where did he and Rose get off to, then?"

Martha set her chin back onto her arms in her continuing mission to hold K-9 in place and gave a light shrug of her shoulders. "TARDIS is pretty big, maybe they got lost?"

Four looked up to the ceiling. "Any chance of guiding our lost pair back here to the galley?"

Ten frowned a tight grimace with his head tilted just slightly. "They're not on board."

Romana sat up straight in her chair. "What was that?"

Four grimaced in much that same manner that his tenth incarnation was. It was an expression of concentration and worry. "You're right. I can't feel them on board."

The two Time Lords shared a look of pure worry. Ten quickly pressed his hands into the table to push himself to a stand. "We've gotto find them. It's not safe out there for them right now."

Martha lifted her chin off her arms. Her expression mirrored that of both men. "What's out there?"

"The _Family_ ," Ten growled in return. "The sole reason I did myself in the first place."

"They've shown themselves," Four continued gravely.

"Well, at least one of them has," Ten corrected. He pushed himself away from the table and quickly took himself toward the door. "Which means we have to as well. If they get their hands on Gal, there's not telling what'll happen."

"I'm sure they're okay," Marth offered as she carefully backed away from K-9 with the hope that he wouldn't roll off the table. "They're spent Gal's entire life running from danger…" She stopped short and winced as Ten made a small sound of pain in the back of his throat. "I'm sorry."

"No more," he whispered hoarsely. "No more and never again." He waved his hand with a single swoop upward to tell Martha to follow him and loudly cleared his throat. "Come on, then Martha. Let's go find our two wanderers, shall we? Allons-y!"

"Allon- _what_?" Four moaned with a disgusted wince in his face and jaw. "Rassilon, man, are you attempting to be _cute_?"

Ten's face lengthened innocently. "Well. No. I just thought it was a fun word to say."

"Do I grow up or get younger with every regeneration," Four moaned. His moan shifted to a yelp that matched the sound yipped by his older self as the room suddenly lurched and seemed to lift from the ground with incredible acceleration that pulled all of its occupants to the ground.

"What was that," Martha queried worriedly as she clutched onto the table and found her balance.

Ten looked to Four with an expression of disbelief. "She can't be," he breathed. "She's not in flight, is she?"

"Only one way to find out," Four bellowed in response as he quickly disappeared through the door and could be heard thundering down the corridor toward the console room.

Ten let out a short cough at the speed by which his younger counterpart departed the room, but only let that surprise pause him for a half-second before he was out the door and less than a stride behind him. They both reached the console room simultaneously and battled with shoulder strikes who would be the first to enter the room.

Four burst through first and ran immediately to the display. "Oh no," he muttered darkly. "No no no. How can you possibly be in flight? I didn't authorise this."

Ten moved around the console and struck at the levers and dials in a manner that seemed much more random than it really was. "This is impossible," he growled. "She's in the vortex. How?"

"I don't know," Four growled in reply as he made his own movements against non-responsive lever controls. "She's flying on her own."

"But how?"

"If I knew that," he snarled hotly across the console. "Then I'd know how to stop it, wouldn't I?"

"You know what," Ten snapped. "How about you shove your attitude right up your _void_ so we can work together to get this old girl back down on Earth?"

"How about you stop asking me stupid questions that you know I don't have the bloody answers to then?"

Ten opened his mouth to spit out another retort, but was quickly silenced by crackling in the air and the flickering appearance of a hologram image projected from the console herself. He stepped back toward Four and slapped him in the chest with the back of his hand. "What's this?"

Four blinked rapidly as his gaze followed Ten's line of sight. His jaw flapped open and closed three times before he could look toward Ten with an expression of confusion. "I have no idea."

A small, yet confident little voice crackled through the TARDIS speakers and accompanied the every movement of the image of young Gallifrey Tyler dressed in his finest Gallifreyan tunic and trouser set (including Converse and not boots thankyouverymuchRomana)

" _Is this working?"_ The image of Gallifrey looked back to the main console a moment. " _Auntie TARDIS, we got it, yeah? Yeah."_ He turned back forward. _"Okay."_

Ten walked around the image of his child and dropped to his knees in front of it. He looked up into the child face, expecting him to look down at him with a smile. Of course, the eyes of the projection, and his focus was straight ahead. "Gal," he pleaded as he lifted his hand in an attempt to touch at his cheek. "As soon as we get control back of the TARDIS, I'm on my way."

 _"_ _This is Security Protocol Gal-one,_ " Gallifrey's image said on a level voice. That level voice quickly fell to one of amusement. _"Hi Dad. You and mum were getting in some of your alone time that I don't want to be a part of. Eww. But I'm not going to interrupt because I'd like a little sister, please. Missed birthday, remember… You owe me a present._ " He waggled his brows and then grinned. _"So me and Aunty TARDIS and K-9 put our heads together and came up with a few security protocols that we think might come in handy."_

Gallifrey's eyes widened and he quickly looked behind him. His jaw dropped. " _Get on with it? Oh. Yes. Sorry. Good idea. Forget about the sister thing and what you two might be doing right now, because obviously we have something serious afoot if you're actually seeing this."_ He patted his hand in the air as though to quieten someone. " _Right. Yeah. Okay. Getting to it now._ "

He looked forward again. _"Dad. If you're getting this message, then it means I'm in trouble. Somehow we've managed to get separated from you – me and mum – and we've got ourselves in enough trouble that I've had to activate this protocol. Whatever it is, don't blame Mum, yeah? Seriously. There's a really big possibility that it's all my fault and that she's doing everything she can to make sure I'm safe like she always does…"_ The image took a deep breath to continue. " _But mum really can only do so much, and so this means I'm calling you for help because it's really outside her scope of expertise … or they just have bigger guns than we do … not that we carry guns, me and mum, cause we don't. But if she got one, she'd know how to use it, because she's brilliant like that._ " He smiled fondly.

Ten searched the child's face as though it would give him all the answers. "What's happening, Gal? Where are you? My other TARDIS? The School? Where? How can I find you?"

" _I know you're probably asking me how to find us, and I have some good news on that. In order to activate this protocol I've had to supply TARDIS with my Time and location coordinates. They should be uploaded to her nav-com system. I know she won't fly herself or anything like that – but that would be pretty awesome if she could, yeah? I bet she could if she was worried enough, though. Because she's brilliant like that."_ He swallowed. " _But she can tell you where me and mum have got ourselves off to so you can come save the day._ " He leaned forward and wagged a finger at him. " _Just don't do it on a horse, yeah? Mum doesn't like horses thanks to you. And you know just why that is…Don't think she hasn't told me_ that _story._ " Chiding over, Gallifrey stood up straight and took a breath. " _Please dad. Come help us. I wish I could tell you more, but I can't because I'm not so good with the predicting my future antics thing. Whatever it is, though, it's not good, and we need you. Okay? Please Dad. Please come help us. We need you."_

"I'm coming," Ten assured on a whisper. He looked to Four, who was in a mortified lean against the console. "Do you think she…" he nodded to the central column. "That she's got herself worked up enough to follow Gal's coords on her own?"

"Looks like it," Four answered with a furrow in his brow. "Although why she'd have to take the Vortex, I have no idea. It was only a short-hop."

They both looked to the column as it seemed to send out several beeps, blips, chips and chirps. "Just what is she up to, then," Ten asked cautiously as he pulled himself to his feet and walked to the console.

"I don't know. I don't speak TARDIS," Four growled. "But it's clear that she's talking to someone."

Romana slipped in through the doorway with Martha at her side. She let out a breath as she shook her head and approached the two Time Lords. "It is well documented that Time Capsules do chat to each other in the vortex," she offered. "By Rassilon, if they didn't have someone else to talk to, they'd probably go completely insane. Well. Moreso than this capsule, of course. She is rather unique." She noted the looks of surprise from the two men. "Did you, perhaps, fall asleep during those lectures, Doctor?"

"Is that your way of saying that you speak her language, Romana," Four grumbled back. "Because if it is, then now might be a perfect time for you to translate for us."

"It's not a language that's ever been properly translated," she answered. Her eyes shifted from the beeping and chirping console to the image of the child that was still being projected in front of the Time Lord in the pinstripe suit. "The language of your child, however. That's been translated into just about every language we've been taught. He's started talking again, so you might want to keep listening."

Ten and Four walked side by side toward the projection that had started to speak again.

" _Dad. Just in case. You know. Just in case you and TARDIS can't get here in time and me and mum are … well. Just know. Just know that we both love you, yeah? No matter what, we love you. This trouble was not your fault, and we both you know did everything you could. Okay? This is not, absolutely not your fault … Love you, dad. See you soon, yeah?"_

Ten shuddered, Four winced. Both of them let out identical sounds that were best left without description by anyone who heard it.

"They're okay," Ten breathed as the projection vanished. "We're getting them back."

"If I have to destroy the very fabric of time to do it, yes. We are." He looked toward the time rotor. "Okay, old girl. Conversation is over. We have to get back down onto Earth and help out Rose and Gal. Do you think you could possibly let us take over the flight plan from here?"

The rotor column stopped moving and the whining wheeze of the engines stopped. The Ship seemed to let out an exhausted breath, which slammed open both doors.

Before either of the two Doctors could launch from their position to rush out into the night, they heard an angry bellow with a heavy and distinct and irate Northern accent.

" _…_ _. I'm going to kill every last stinking one of you!"_


	51. Thirteen Doctors - Redux

A/N: Right. Let me just say right off that this was the absolute most difficult chapter I have ever ever ever had to write. Aside from the actual expectations that I know you all have (which is so unbelievably terrifying you have no idea) is the actual inclusion of each and every one of the lads. They all had to have a voice in there somewhere, and it got tough to make sure that happened.

Will I meet expectation below? I have no idea. I am - as noted above - terrified about how this will go down with you lot. But I took a couple of days to write it up and thought about it as long as I could. I then thundered it out with shaking hands and fingers across my keyboard with a fervent prayer that I did okay.

That many players really convolutes stuff...

Points to note: I know they didn't ALL have sonics, but for the purpose of this, yes they do. Shadow proclamation convention thingies ... I made that bit up. No I don't know where Twelve got his guitar, but Hendricks sounded like a good donor. (Sorry if you don't like what I did with Twelve there, but I really couldn't resist) The ending and how that came about ... well ... hopefully you follow me to the next chapter...

Oh to the deities above I hope not to have disappointed here. you all seemed so excited ... (whispers: Not done with Nine just yet, so don't worry)

~~oooOOOooo~~

The wind whipped at little Gallifrey's head as TARDIS after TARDIS materialized in a line along the paddock. He swatted blindly at his face to free it from his mother's flailing hair, and found himself having to slap and wipe at his face as the hair stuck to the tear tracks on his cheeks.

The whipping winds seemed to be strong enough that it was able to hold back the remaining scarecrows. This gave young Gallifrey the time he needed to assess the arriving cavalry and hopefully find a way to get his mum safe.

Within only a few moments he'd counted the materialization of six TARDISes and if the continuing distant and approaching whining and wheezing of Rotor engines was any indicator, there were more on their way.

It was unexpected, but not unwelcome, and the sudden feeling of hope that bloomed inside his little chest made him smile.

"Dad's here," he cooed to his mother. He held her up tightly against his heaving little chest, with his arms threaded underneath hers. He struggled under the weight of her. Unconscious, Rose was unmoving and silent and simply hung against him like a heavy rag doll. He took a second to listen for her panted and ragged breaths before continuing to try and rouse her. "Dad's here now, Mum. Lots of him actually." He sniffed with worry that she didn't respond. " You really don't want to miss all this _Doctor_ in one place." He gulped in his own panted breaths. "So no more channeling the vortex, yeah? Let's let daddy fix you right up, yeah? We'll be okay, you'll see."

Heavy footfalls on dewy grass approached at a run, but Gallifrey kept his focus on his mother. With his dad – or _dads_ – here, the bad guys could go get stuffed. He wasn't going to worry about them anymore. That was now his dad's job.

"Mum," he urged with a shake at her shoulders. "C'mon, Mum. Wake up. You got a little boy here who really needs his mummy right now." He inhaled a shaking and worried breath when Rose was completely unresponsive. "Please, mum?"

There was a swish of stiff fabric at his side, and a gentle hand fell upon Gallifrey's shoulder. "It's okay, Gal. I'm here now. Lt me take a look at her."

Gallifrey hiccupped a couple of times as he tried to speak. He had held it together okay to this point, but now that his dad was here, he was about to lose it completely. Over Rose's head and shoulder he let his eyes trail cautiously up the body of the man who had crouched beside him. He scanned his way up the length of a beige-coloured jacket with orange edging, and then stopped at a stalk of celery that pinned to his lapel. "Celery, Dad?" he questioned as he looked up into a pair of dark blue eyes.

"Celery," Five confirmed with a small smile on a warm voice. "It's good for you." He cupped at Gallifrey's chin with a tender touch. "Are you okay?"

Gallifrey nodded rapidly and then shook his head with a wince of absolute distress. He stretched out his arms to pass his mother off to his Dad . "I'm good, Dad. But, Mum. She's not. Help her please." He winced and let out a little grunt as Rose's weight shifted and she tumbled backward into Five's chest.

He caught Rose before she could tumble out of his arms completely. His voice, slightly higher in pitch than the deeper voice that Gallifrey was used to, proved to be just as effective a soothing balm as Four and Ten's was. He was able to ease much of the lad's distress with a smile and a gentle: "Let me take a look at her. I'm sure she's going to be just fine." A slightly pained look crossed his handsome features as he took in Rose's shaking form. "Oh my Rose. What happened to you, Sweetheart?"

From above him a voice with a much higher pitch in it and far less warmth, queried the circumstances. "And just what happened here, then?"

Five didn't look up as his Sixth self crouched beside him and laid a gentle touch of his fingers against her temples. He tenderly laid Rose back onto the grass and stroked her hair out of her eyes. "I'm not sure exactly what went on to cause this. I can only assume…"

"And to assume makes as ass of you and me," Six shot back swiftly as his hand shot back. "Ask about, man. Find out what has her in this state and perhaps it'll make it easier for us to determine the appropriate course of treatment. It wouldn't serve her any good if we go about with the wrong…"

"Why don't _you_ go and _ask about_ ," Five snapped harshly to interrupt his words. His widened eyes fell to the ashen-faced youngster at his side and then flicked back up to Six in warning. "And while you do that I'll make sure that our wife is at least comfortable." His eyes fell back to Gallifrey, who looked upon him with all the hope and trust of a desperate child. "I am very sure that she's going to be perfectly fine. Just a little exhausted after a big day I'll bet."

"Don't humour me, Dad," Gallifrey muttered. "I already know it's bad."

"She'll be fine, Gal. I promise you."

"We should take her into the TARDIS," a voice in a lower register and rapid delivery suggested. "Of the three of us, I believe mine has the most updated and current medical bay. I've actually installed several new neurological scanners that should advise of any sublaxation in any of her neurological processes."

Six twisted to fire off a glare toward his Seventh self. "Sublaxation of her Neurological processes? By the Gods, man. Do you even know what you're talking about or are you just making this stuff up as you go along to appear _clever_ to those around you?"

"Oh I forgot how properly pompous and annoying I was in your incarnation," Seven muttered with a roll in his eyes.

Joan's voice, harsh and decidedly feminine in amongst voices of men, trilled out loudly. "Have we forgotten about us, Gentlemen?"

Seven flicked a dismissive wave at her. "Of course we haven't forgotten about you. We are, however, in a discussion right now regarding matters far more important than you. So if you wouldn't mind. Please take a number. You'll have to wait."

"We don't wait," she growled in reply. She pointed toward Gallifrey. "Now, if you will. Please hand over the child."

"You want _what_? My child? Oh, I think not."

Six frowned a moment and looked toward Gallifrey. He lowered the volume of his voice to a hard whisper. "Tell me, my precious boy. Just who are we supposed to have not forgotten about?" he questioned quickly. "And I will guess that they are the nefarious sort?"

"Very nefarious," Gallifrey replied with a look around his hip at the woman who once was Joan Redfern. "Don't you remember?"

Six rubbed at his chin, Seven shrugged. Five continued to tenderly attend to Rose.

"Are you all serious?" Gallifrey huffed as he raked his hands through his hair. "How did you know to be here if you can't remember?"

"Security Protocol Gal-One," they all answered simultaneously.

"It would appear," Six continued. "That our old girl was concerned enough to send your SOS to each of us." He looked around. "Three of us here, four of us in a huddle over yonder no doubt discussing the ones you cite as being nefarious." He held up his hand as though using his fingers to count off. "We are a few men short it seems, which surprised me. I would think that each and every one of me would be here in an instant to know you and our beloved is in peril."

"Peril is one word for it," Gallifrey murmured. "And just in case you missed it, they have an ever growing army," Gallifrey warned with a flick of his arm toward the distance, and to a fresh platoon of marching scarecrows forming rank behind the four aliens that wanted to eat them. "A very creepy army."

Five winced. "Yes. Very creepy, although not quite the creepiest I've ever encountered. We'll let the other me's handle them for now … Hopefully the rest will turn up shortly."

"Ahh," Seven interrupted almost triumphantly. "Materialization of two more TARDISes is underway." He leaned on his umbrella. "Our response time needs some work. Perhaps we should synchronize our machines before we take off."

"They're the same machine," Five answered gruffly. His hand stroked softly down along Rose's cheek and jaw. "She's burning up," he advised them worriedly. "You two can discuss the finer points of missing incarnations and sublaxation of neuropathological pathways to your hearts' content. I'm taking Rose and Gallifrey to my TARDIS. She needs immediate attention that I can't give her if she's lying out here." He grimaced lightly in thought. "Although the crisp air might assist in bringing down her fever."

"If it hasn't by now," Six countered, "then it isn't going to. Take her to _my_ TARDIS."

Five growled a territorial sound. "She's going to _my_ TARDIS."

Seven wasn't going to stand clear of this one. "My TARDIS," he snarled. "She's coming with _me_."

A thunderous voice thick with a Northern drawl stopped the argument in its tracks. "What in the name of Rassilon…!"

Six and Seven didn't have time to lift their heads to the voice before the owner of it barreled through them both like a bowling ball taking down the last two pins to take a spare. Five didn't escape the leather-clad black ball of fury that dropped down in a crouch beside Rose's hip and used his shoulder to shove him out of the way.

"What happened to her?" he demanded hotly as his eyes raked quickly over her shuddering and panting form. He crawled over to straddle her hips between his thighs as he touched his hands to either side of her face and leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead, her nose, and then a light press of his mouth against hers. "It's me," he said softly. "Rose, it's your Doctor. Time to get up now and start our runnin'. Come on, Love. Sleeping's for the tortoises, not for adventurers like us." His hold on her face tightened in reaction her non responsiveness and he let out a growl as he firmly pressed his forehead against hers. "Up up up my beautiful little ape. Come on."

"She's out cold," Five volunteered warily. "We're about to move her into the TARDIS."

"What happened to her?" he snarled in response with a flicked movement of his eyes toward Six. "Who did this?"

Five watched with half terrified eyes the man in front of him lifted his chest to hover shaking hands over her chest, shoulders and neck as though he were a walking sentient scanning machine. He put his hand against Gallifrey's chest to guide the child to stay behind him. This man. This … _Doctor_ … didn't look as put together as the other incarnations that had arrived. The way he hovered, the way he breathed in and out through his nose with such seething intensity that those breaths seemed to speak what was running through his tortured mind brought fear within him.

His appearance defied everything that made him the Doctor. He wore a beaten and distressed black leather jacket at least two sizes too big for him, loose black trousers that may not have been actual denim, but certainly did all they could to look like it. His hair – the mane of the Time Lord Doctor and his pride and joy – was cropped so close to his head that he may as well have shaved it all off completely. The sunken look in his light blue eyes, the sneer on his lip, the thick and oversized leather and denim armour as well as the close cropped hair curving like a helmet around his head.

…He looked like a man who had lost it all and had nothing else at all to lose.

"Doctor?" he ventured warily, not quite sure just which incarnation he was and just why he looked so incredibly unstable at this moment.

Nine's head shot up. His lip curled. His eyes were darkened with furious fire. "What happened to her?" he bellowed angrily as his fist struck the ground. "Who did this to her?"

Gallifrey scrambled around Five to move forward and to cup his little hands around Nine's cheeks. "Shh. Shh. Daddy. Don't get mad at you." He lifted his arm and glared a hot little stare along his arm at the family group of four, who seemed to be in the midst of a rather spectacular argument with five other incarnations of the Doctor. "It's _their_ fault this happened to Mum. She was tryin' to protect me from them, and they just kept coming and coming and coming, and …" He sniffed a wet little sniff. "And she just couldn't keep fighting them all off." He inhaled through his mouth and looked at Nine with wide and imploring eyes. "But she did good to hold them off till you all got here."

Nine curled a hand around the back of Gallifrey's head and pulled him in to touch their foreheads together. "Are _you_ okay?" he queried gruffly.

Gallifrey nodded a rapid bob of his head. "I'm okay, dad. No boo-boos to speak of." He kept his forehead against Nine's but twisted his head on his neck to look across the paddock. "At least not yet. Don't let them get me." His voice fell to a whisper. "Please."

"They have to get through me first," he vowed darkly.

"Get through all of you," Gallifrey said softly.

"Those other idiots can get in line," Nine snarled as he tightened his hold on his son's head. "I'm owed this much." Nine released his child and shot to a stand. He twisted his head to look down at Rose's prone form and let that image rip apart any semblance of control he had left. "Right," he called as he spun and clapped his hands together in a single, loud, strike of palm against palm. "Which one of you pathetic cretins wants first shot at a Time Lord who's done with talkin' and wants to go about bashin' some heads in?"

Bains tipped his head to one side with a tic and let a brow flick on his forehead with Nine's approach. His filthy smirk deepened as Nine drew closer. He flicked his fingers to the line of scarecrows to his left. "I really don't like to get my hands dirty, so feel free to go up against my little friends here. When they bring you and your fellow Time Lords to your knees, then we'll talk." He chuckled. "We were only hoping to get the kid, but we're more than happy to take the whole lot of you."

"Scarecrows," Nine countered with a sneer down his nose at the teenager. "I've faced down armies of Daleks, Cybermen, Slitheen, Sontarans, and even my own kind. Do you really think that a mob of brainless straw-bodied toys are going to stop me?" He chuckled darkly through a curl in his lip. "You'll have to do better than that if you want to put something between you and me."

Bains swept his arm through the air, indicating the gathered army of scarecrows. "Then have your fun, Time Lord. If you can make it through them, then you'll get to me."

"You have no idea how glad I am that you said that," Nine replied with a happy grin that quickly shifted to a smirk of revulsion. He drew in a deep breath and released it as a terrifically thunderous roar as he paced forward. "Because I'm going to kill every last stinking one of you."

Bains took a step backward, his face an image of fear, at Nine's approach. Perhaps it had something to do with the way the Time Lord loomed tall and rubbed his hands together as though he was ready and willing to fight – unlike his predecessors who seemed more interested in trading barbs and threats than actually putting up his fists to fight.

"You might want to back off," Bains warned as he continued to retreat.

Nine continued to step forward. "No." He smirked. "Backing off is not part of my repertoire, sorry. Not real practiced in that." He stopped in front of the boy and folded his arms tightly across his deliberately puffed up chest. He looked down over his chest and arms at the boy. "Kicking the arse of a fool alien who dares go near my family; who threatens my _wife_ and _child_. Oh. You bet I'm good at that."

Bains backed into his wall of scarecrows and half cowered. "So you're going to kill me?"

Nine's brow arched. "I did say that, didn't I?"

As he punched a fist into his hand and made his approach there was a bellow of an order in an urgent Estuary accented voice that cried out over the final sounds of TARDIS materialization.

"Doctor. Wait! Don't do it!"

Nine's shoulders and head dipped backward into a short slouch of disbelief. "You've got to be kidding me." He straightened up and flicked up a finger into Bains' face. "To be continued momentarily – once I've kicked my own arse…" He huffed and turned around. "To prime myself if you will."

Ten rocketed across the grass in a gallop that had him running sideways as he thundered out orders to Romana and Martha to take care of Rose and Gallifrey and get them to safety. Apparently his TARDIS had flown in completely on her own and sat at the end of the line of blue boxes impatiently awaiting her Wolf and Cub with whining engine sounds and rattling front doors.

"I don't care," he called in response to an argument from Five. "Get her to _my_ TARDIS, she'll know what to do."

He turned around with just enough time to be able to skid along dewy grass and stop before colliding with Nine's chest.

Although he was a decent inch shorter than his older incarnation, Nine did his best to loom as intimidatingly as possible – even taking it as far as rolling just slightly onto the balls of his feet to do so.

"You," he seethed with fury.

Ten wasn't intimidated at all; in fact he smiled a relived smile and exhaled a pair of panted breaths. "There's no sense in trying to take down the scarecrows to get at the family members." He looked over Nine's shoulder to the group shielded behind a line of scarecrows two-men deep. "For every one that's destroyed another two seem to crawl out of the trees to replace them."

"So?"

"So?" he barked back incredulously. "So it's a waste of time."

"I'm perfectly okay with a wasted minute or so." He narrowed his eyes at the converging scarecrows. "That should give you enough time to find a flame thrower and we can end this much quicker."

"A _what_?"

"A flamethrower. I'm pretty sure there's one somewhere in the TARDIS." He looked suspiciously toward his Eighth self as he entered into the grouping of Time Lord Doctors what had gathered around them. "You're looking like the cat that ate the tafelshrew."

"Hardly," Eight countered with a shrug. "But I do know that if we're to make it through the sea of Scarecrows to get to the main instigators of this party, then we need to find their control." He fiddled at the button on his fob watch, clicking at it endlessly. "These creatures aren't sentient. They're controlled. On my last trip into this every-single-lifetime-event, I managed to take one of the scarecrows on board my TARDIS. I took it back to Gallifrey with the intent to reverse engineer the proprietary extension protocol to perhaps develop a bypass to use this time around."

"You mean you actually remember this," Ten barked. "But how? I don't and I was you once."

Eight slid him a weary look. "Bits and pieces only."

"Timelines are out of synch," Two offered gruffly. "It's impossible for any of us to remember any of this."

Eight's eyes shifted back to the scarecrows and focused on a small and almost indiscernible blinking red light at its collar. "No level of packet sniffing and binary decompilation and disassembly of the control circuitry gave me the answers I needed to create the technology required to take control of these things."

Nine's brows tightened together in a hard frown. "I still think a flame thrower is our best option right now. Kill 'em with fire."

"So they can keep coming back in greater numbers, Doctor," Ten snapped. "Great plan. Simply _fantastic_. I can see your time spent fighting taught you a thing or two about warfare and battle numbers."

"Want me to show you _exactly_ what I learned, Doctor?" Nine snapped back. "I'm truly not opposed to shoving my foot up your backside and using you as a bloody great plough to shove our way through the whole bloody lot of them."

"Sometimes I have to wonder just how Rose ever fell for me given that her first Doctor was _you_ ," Ten growled back in response. "All big ears and useless brute attitude."

Nine actually grinned at that. "It really burns you that she fell in love with _my_ incarnation, doesn't it? "Had to turn yourself into a freckle-faced pretty boy with an equally pretty little accent to try and keep her, didn't you?" He gave him a raking look of judgement up and down and then lifted his eyes to fire a smirk of loathing. "Tell me. Does she tell you when she pines for me? Had she ever asked you if you can look like me all over again?"

"Oh forget the family," Ten snarled as he seemed to bounce in place in preparation to lay a perfect strike against a man who had truly invoked his fury. "I've got a much better target in mind."

Father of Mine's voice thundered a laugh from the grouping ahead of them, which abruptly put a pause on the argument between incarnations. The sea of Scarecrows parted to reveal the family of four standing together as a group now exposed to the eleven Time Lords grouped in the centre of the scarecrow grouping.

"You know," he began with mirth. "I had heard rumours that Time Lords were less than the brilliant yet pompous race they made themselves out to be." His smile fell. "This insane little grouping of fools puts truth to those rumours in a spectacularly brilliant manner."

Nine snorted a derisive exhale hard enough to have him thumb at the underside of his nose to clear it. "Don't put me – or any of this grouping – in the same class as the high and mighty Time Lords of Gallifrey."

"Even though that's exactly what we are," Ten muttered under his breath.

"Semantics."

Father of Mine hissed for quiet. "You are out gunned and outnumbered. There is no way for you to defeat our army. We've spent a long time and many resources in making sure that there is absolutely no possible favourable outcome for anyone who dares try."

Eight growled. "I'm not one to let short odds stop me."

Three agreed with his own snort. "Even a short odd indicates a possible favourable outcome – albeit an unlikely one."

Four waggled his brows and widened his eyes as he grinned a wide grin. "And I do find that I seem to do much better when the odds are much lower. A challenge, oh how I do love a good challenge."

Father of Mine sneered as he held up his hand, where a fairly large and boxy control device blipped and flashed in his hand. "This is the only _odd_ ," he said coolly. "While I hold this, your nightmare won't end. This will create and control an endless army against you." He flicked the fingers of his other hand in between Nine and Ten. "Would you like me to give you a few more moments to continue your pathetic little disagreement before I unleash the entire army against you?"

Ten looked thrilled by the prospect. "Oh. Would you? That would be most kind of you. There are certainly a few things I'd like to say to this gigantic pile of woprat excrement before I pass on to my next incarnation … or die, whichever comes first… or last."

Nine's head bobbed in agreement with his older self. "Cheers for the opportunity to give this idiot a right piece of my mind." Out of the corner of his eye and behind the shoulder of Father of Mine he caught sight of a grey-haired man wearing plaid trousers, a black jacket over the top of a stretched and worn white T-shirt, a guitar strap over his chest, and quite possibly the angriest eyebrows he'd ever seen. He had to grin as the individual drew closer and let the guitar strap slide off his shoulder. "Yeah. I'd appreciate an extra minute with pinstripes here if you don't mind."

Father of Mine grinned a smirk. His head ticked lightly to one side. "You've got one minute and then I unleash my army upon you all."

Joan looked at her wrist as though looking at a watch. "Fifty nine. Fifty eight…"

Nine slowly turned to face Ten and gave him a truly filthy grin. "So? Where to begin, then?"

Ten's smile was just as wide. "Wherever you want. I believe you ended with reminding me that Rose fell in love with you first."

"That I did…"

"Father of mine let out a groan. "Oh will you get on with it, I don't want to be standing here all day."

Nine watched as Twelve held the neck of the guitar in his hands, wound it up a little, and then swung it like a cricket bat into Father of Mine's back. There was a huffed and hotly amused laugh from the last incarnation of the Doctor as his strike threw his target off balance and the remote device flew from his hand.

"Ahhh," he drawled. "I'll take that little beastie off your hands, then." He snatched it out of the air with his left hand and let the backswing of his arm take him into a 360 degree spin. He immediately searched out his child. "Gallifrey," he called with cheer in his voice. "C'mere, Son." He used the length of his now broken guitar to point at the man sprawled on the grass. "And you. You stay right there. Move and I'll give ye another clout with me…." He let out a moan at the state of his instrument. "You broke it! Jimi Hendrix game me this. I cannot get another one."

Gallifrey weaved in between Doctors Nine and Ten and panted an urgent and panicked breath. "Dad. Mum…"

Twleve lifted his head and shot his son a smile. "Here, Gal. Catch!" he called as he under-arm tossed the device to Gallifrey. "You're a smart lad, see if you can shut these scarecrows down for your dad, will ya?"

Gallifrey thumbed behind him. "But … but mum…"

Father of Mine tried to rise, but was quickly shoved down by the sharp and jagged broken neck of Twelve's guitar. "What'd I say to you? Stay down." He pointed to Joan, Bains and Jenny, who looked ready to make their own approach. "That goes for you lot, too. Stay where you are." He nodded to Nine and Ten. "Nice work on keeping them from realizing I was out of the picture. Very clever."

Both men maintained relatively neutral expressions, but shrugged as though in agreement.

Father of mine spat at the ground and writhed under the point of the broken guitar neck. "What're you talking about?"

"I'm talking distraction, you fool," Twelve drawled inside his Scottish brogue. "Distraction. Warfare one-oh-one. Do you seriously believe that with my wife and child in danger that I'd actually waste time arguing with myself instead of making sure that all our plans for making sure they got out of this safe." He prodded him a little harder. "Well, do you? Of course not. I may be a mad bastard, but I'm no fool."

Father of mine snorted in amusement. "And you think that taking that remote control wins you this battle?" He spat out a laugh. "That child would have to have intimate knowledge of my ship's codes and the override protocols."

"He's a clever lad," Twelve remarked proudly.

"Unsuccessful attempts to hack into our ship will activate our safety protocols," Father said with a smirk. "And block out any further attempts to get in."

"It'll also activate your ships alarms, yes?" Twelve waggled a brow. "Which, due to a known fault in the ship's design that dates back almost a century, momentarily disables the cloaking shields and opens it up to discovery by, say, by a Time Lord who is looking in the general vicinity of the last known energy signature of the hidden craft." He used his finger to count off the heads of the Doctor's that were moving into a semi-circle around the exposed family members. "Eight, nine, ten, eleven and twelve."

Ten winced. "Oh. Looks like we're missing one." He blew out a breath. "And that could prove to be bad. Very bad. Very very and extremely bad." His brows shot high and his head lifted as he thought to clarify that. "To _you_ , that is." His brows fell again. "Not to us."

Nine nodded in agreement. "Not to us at all."

Ten looked down his shoulder at Nine. "Well. That all depends, really."

"On just how big a bang we want to make?"

"Oh yes." Ten blew out a breath. "And with these idiots deciding to go after our wife and child?"

Nine started to lower himself into a low crouch. "Oh. Then that would be a rather large one, wouldn't it?"

Ten nodded rapidly as he followed Nine's lead and started to drop into a crouch of his own. "Hendricks was a firecracker by comparison…"

A cry that may have well been a cheer or a high-noted bellow of warning – but sounded suspiciously like the word: _Geronimo_ – poured thickly out through the barren branches of the dormant trees of the forest. The sound of that voice was followed by a tall and lanky young man who sprinted out of the woods with his arms flailing in a sloppy circle at his side as though to keep his balance, which he actually lost. He tripped into a roll that ended him back up on his feet, and he fled past the edge of the stilled and silent scarecrows, and sped by each of the waiting Doctors.

"You all might want to duck!" he hollered as both of his arms hooked around Gallifrey's waist to pull him up against his chest. He leapt and twisted in the air to land them on his back, and then rolled to cover the young boy's body with his own.

The rumble in the ground, the whip of a shockwave, and then the blistering heat of the explosive blast blanketing each individual and TARDIS machine in the field. Eleven winced a tight grimace as the heat wave blasted over him, but tried to shush the frightened peep of Gallifrey underneath him. "It's alright Gal," he managed through gritted teeth. "I've got you."

"Getoffmegetoffmegetoffme," Gallifrey cried out as he struggled for freedom. "Mum!"

As soon as the blast flashed past, Eleven popped up onto his hands and his knees to look down at his terrified child. His eyes scanned him quickly for injury. "Are you okay? You didn't get hurt, yeah? You're good?"

Gallifrey nodded shortly, and so Eleven looked up and across the field toward his wife. "Rose?!"

Three raised his head and then a thumb as he peeled himself up off the top of Rose. "Uncharred," he hollered back. "Still out, though. Still fevered…"

"Then by the Gods, old man, get her in the TARDIS!" He looked down to Gallifrey and shrugged. "Youth…"

Gallifrey's eyes were wide and practically bulged out of his head at the face looking down at him. Concern filled ancient eyes that sat inside the most youthful of all the Doctor's faces. "Like _you_ can talk. You. You look so young."

Eleven grinned a wide smile. "What'dya think?" He waggled his brows. "Still handsome, yeah?"

"Eww."

"Yeah, well like it and get used to it, Flubble," Eleven said with a chuckle. "This is the face you're wearing next."

"What?" Gallifrey's expression fell. "Are you … Are you _me_?"

"Nope," he said with a pop more appropriate for his Tenth self. He gave Gallifrey a tight hug and a hard kiss on his forehead. "I'm your dad. Husband to your mum. Sirer of all the little Time Lords and ladies that are your siblings." He rose to his feet and held down his hand to pull Gallifrey to his feet. "Patcher of boo-boos and retriever and washbasin of Nuk Nuks that fall out of the mouths of little Time Ladies." He screwed up his face and slapped his tongue along his teeth in disgust.

Gallifrey snaked a weaving sway in front of him and eyed him suspiciously. "So. I end up lookin like you, then, when I regenerate?"

He shrugged. "Or I end up wanting to look like my former little mini-me when _I_ regenerate."

"Huh?"

"We'll have to see who regenerates first, little Flubble…" He winked and acruffed at his hair. "Go see to your mum. Let us deal with these idiots."

Gallifrey nodded quickly and rushed off to where his mother lay, being attended to by Martha and Romana.

Eleven only watched a second and then walked up to a scarecrow that stood still at the edge of the grouping. After drawing in an exaggerated and deep exhale, he blew hard at the scarecrow, which immediately fell apart and crumpled to the ground at his feet. "Huh," he breathed with mock surprise. "Fire and straw don't mix well – who would've thunk it?" He shot a look toward the entire family of Blood who were on the ground now themselves.

In a change typically credited more to his tenth self than his current incarnation, Eleven switched from jovial and friendly to downright dark and furious. He thrust his hand into his coat pocket to retrieve his Sonic Screwdriver and growled as he moved upon the foursome huddled on the ground. He aimed his sonic at the Father of the grouping and snarled a low growl at him. "Now that your army's been defeated, you're completely defenseless."

Twelve and Ten stood either side of him and slowly the other doctors curved around them in numerical order to surround the family. Each of them with their sonic screwdriver in hand and pointed down at their enemy.

…All except Twelve. Twelve simply put on a pair of dark sunglasses and let his brows of fury rise up over the top edge of the lens.

Eleven gave him a rather odd look and leaned just slightly over. "Did you lose the sonic?"

"Kind've," he answered.

"TARDIS didn't give you a new one?"

"She did." He grinned and tapped at the edge of his glasses. "Aren't they something?"

"Yeah," Eleven quipeed with a wide eyed expression and a tilt of his head. He shared a look with his Tenth self. "It's _something_ alright."

"Take a mental note of this and make sure you don't do it, yeah?" Ten advised with a wince. "If I come back here when I'm in your incarnation and I see you with those, then I know we lose our minds at Thirteen."

"Deal."

One dragged his feet in the dirt and raised his head high. He kept that chin high, but looked down his nose and along his arm at the foursome on the ground. "Convention twenty-five - Under article seventeen, paragraph fourty three of the Shadow Proclamation, explicitly prohibits the practice of sacrifice or subjection of any sentient life form to non-consensual sacrifice toward any race or species taken to prolong life beyond the accepted natural lifespans. Contravention of this convention, particularly in the case of an attempt to sacrifice a race or species considered semi-immortal to increase the lifespan of a species or race with a considerably shorter expectancy, will be dealt with in the most severest manner to be determined by the judicial parties of the race or species of peoples of whom the sacrificed – or attempted sacrificed – is a member." He leaned forward and sneered toward the Father of the group. "Looks like you're all headed to Gallifrey, doesn't it? And…" He hissed somewhat apologetically through his teeth. "And Gallifreyan verdicts very rarely come down with easy sentences – especially when you are a lesser species charged with trying to take the life force of a Time Lord."

"Yes," Three remarked coolly. "The council does frown quite strongly on matters involving the lesser species such as yourselves going after the future of Gallifrey."

Nine thumbed at his nose. "It'd be easier on them if you let me kill them right here and right now."

Ten shot him a tired look. "Oh, like you'd ever actually do it." He rolled his eyes. "All talk, you are."

"Oh, challenge me, then."

Two looked toward his younger self. "I'm impressed that you remembered all of that Proclamation mumble jumble."

"Would it impress you more to know that I just made it all up?"

Two chuckled at that. "Now _that_ I could believe."

There was a sudden feminine holler from the TARDISes, which had each and every one of the Doctor's incarnations immediately shift their attention. They each expressed a façade of absolute horror at the image of Romana battling to hold young Gallifrey in place against her chest as he struggled for freedom – as his hands, neck and face shimmered with bright amber energies.

Ten was the first to voice the terrified question raging in each man's head.

"What in Rassilon…?"

Martha sped across the grass, hollering for the Doctor – any of them – to help.

"Doctor," she cried. "It's Gal. Romana says you have to come. He's regenerating!"


	52. Regeneration

A/N: Right-y-oh... I wrote myself into a bit of a corner on the last Chapter and it's taken me some thought as to how to carry on. Christmas didn't help .. neither did Netflix...

Herein lies some seriously sappy content that you can quite easily avoid and not lost track of what's going on. I don't quite know what happened, but Gal started trying to help, Ten had to get in on the action, and the next thing you know, all Thirteen Doctors had to get in on it.

If you ever wanted to know each of the words that each Doctor had inscribed on Rose's wedding band, the answer is in here. Warning ... It's truly up there on so sweet you'll need an insulin shot. Like pure sappy groan away and vomit kind of sap. Again, not good at the sap, but there is Doc on Doc interaction ... you all like that, yeah?

Anyway .. Hope you enjoy and do forgive me ...

Oh ... and remember this is Doctor Who (heh heh) Moffatt has him handing out immortality chips and giving companions a TARDIS and ... oh don't get me started... So. :points down: I'm okay to do this with him/them ... yeah?

~~oooOOOooo~~

Gallifrey ran a fast and uncoordinated sprint across the wet and slippery grasses toward where his mother still lay. Oh, she'd been moved at least a few metres when the Third Doctor had attempted to move her into the TARDIS in the short time he had between Eleven's order and the need for the convergence of Doctors upon the family. Gal could see quite clearly his mother's original position in the crimped wet grass which showed as a strange and horrific void in the surrounding grasses that had been immediately dried and slightly singed with the heatwave of his father's explosion.

He may not have given her the comforts of a TARDIS bed, but Three had attempted to make her at least comfortable by placing his velvet jacket underneath her head as a pillow.

This was perfectly fine to young Gallifrey. The open air would work much better for him than the confinement of the TARDIS med bay, anyway. Obviously traditional treatments weren't going to help his mum out – he didn't need her to be scanned to know that. He'd seen her in a milder form of this condition once before after a rather nasty confrontation with would-be Time Tot-nappers. It took him almost two days to be able to pull her free of Bad Wolf's hold, and then it was an additional worrying twelve days to get her back to herself. It would take considerable effort on his part to get her through this, but he was sure he could save her if he really _really_ concentrated. He'd let the adults do their thing to no avail, now it was his turn to try.

He shucked his long jacket as he closed the distance between he and his mother and carelessly tossed it to one side. He fell into a skid on his little pinstriped knees to crash against her side and quickly slid off his blazer. Martha let out a startled yelp at his sudden and rather forceful intrusion.

"Sorry, Martha," he gushed out as he rolled up his sleeves and began vigorously shaking both his hands. "Haven't mastered the art of the knee-skids yet. Couldn't stop in time. Must work on that, I guess, if I'm going to be doing more running with dad. And according to Mum, there's a lot of running." He blew against his fingertips and then went right back to shaking them. "How is she?"

Martha made a slightly sympathetic sound, but quickly set her hand on his shoulder and gave him a smile. "She's going to be fine, Gal. As soon as the Doctor comes back…"

"Don't lie to me," he snapped with a little snarl. "I'm not a stupid kid, okay? I know when it's bad." He looked her over and winced. "And I know this is bad. Really bad. Really really bad and then some more bad."

"Your diagnosis is correct," Romana offered from behind him. He dropped her hand onto his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Gallifrey. I don't know that we have what it takes to help her pull through this."

"That's a little harsh," Martha hissed through her teeth.

"She will pull through," Gallifrey vowed darkly. "She's Rose Tyler – my Mum – she's going to get through this." He leaned down to press his forehead against hers and exhaled a breath that ghosted a wisp of golden energy that was quickly inhaled in though Rose's mouth. "Aren't you?" He looked down and grinned as the tips of his fingers appeared to spark into light. "Ahh. Here we go."

Romana's eyes shot wide as Gallifrey began to glow in front of her. "Gallifrey! By the Gods. Did you get hurt?"

He sat up straight and looked with awe and thrill at the swirling amber light that began to ripple and pulse from underneath the skin of his hands. "No. I'm okay." He slowly lowered his hands to touch his fingers against his mother's temples. "Time for me to kiss away mum's boo-boos like she kisses away mine." He swallowed heavily. "Oh, I hope this works."

Romana wasn't having any of it. "Martha," she ordered hotly. "Go get his father."

"Which one?" Martha panted. She belatedly realized how stupid she sounded when Romana shot her a dark stare. She winced at herself, but put the self-recriminations on hold to worriedly question what was happening to the youngster. "What's happening to him? What's that light?"

Romana kept her stare on Martha, but lunged down to haul Gallifrey away from Rose. She grunted a painful sound of exertion as the child immediately struggled against her.

"Let me go!"

"He's regenerating," Romana gritted out as she fought Gallifrey's flailing limbs. "And if Rose gets caught in the regeneration wake, he'll kill her."

Martha found herself yelling to both express her confusion and to be heard over the top of the child's cries for freedom. "What do you mean by _regenerating_? What is that? Please tell me it isn't what I think it is!"

"Just go," Romana shot back. "Get the Doctor. Now!" She let out a yelp as Gallifrey's kicking feet met hard with her shin. "Hurry!"

Martha's urgent cry for the Doctor and the squeak of her shoes on the wet grasses as she ran registered mildly with Gallifrey as he continued to struggle. His mind told him that he had mere seconds to escape Romana's hold and get back to his mother. If he couldn't form the connection before his any of his fathers made their way to him, then he'd lose his chance to help her…

…Because he'd try to stop him, too. All thirteen of him. Once he linked with his mother, however, they wouldn't be able to stop it – it would be too dangerous for the both of them.

It was time to bring in the big guns…

His struggle against Romana suddenly ceased. He took a calming breath and demanded that she let him go on a layered voice that sent a shudder through her.

"If you don't let me go right now," he warned evenly, "then what's to say you won't suffer the same fate that you think she will?"

"Because I'm Gallifreyan," she shot back desperately. "I was loomed inside the essence of time. I can handle the blast."

"And what makes you think that my mum won't be able to withstand it?"

"She," Romana gritted out. "She's just a human, Gallifrey. She's not like you and I."

"She's not _just a_ human at all," he countered darkly. "She's so much more than that."

"Gallifrey…"

"She's my mum," he continued calmly. " _My_ mum." He sighed a wet and shaking breath. "The most important woman in the entire universe."

Romana winced at the sadness in his voice. She tried to hold him in a comforting embrace instead of the captive hold she had on him. "Gallifrey. I'm so sorry, child. I wish I knew how to make this easy for you."

Rose let out a staggered moan inside her unconsciousness that young Gallifrey felt inside his very soul. His eyes flashed and Gallifrey expelled a loud yell as he shoved Romana back off him. "Get away from me."

The push was enough to have her tumble backward, and Romana found herself colliding hard with the chest of the Doctor's first incarnation. She gave a stammered apology as she staggered to find her balance to not offset his.

"That's fine, my dear. Do find your footing, but don't concern yourself too greatly. I'm here," One rushed out quickly as he set his arms on her shoulders to steady her, all while keeping his eyes on his child glowing with regeneration energy in front of him. "I'll tame the lad."

"Will you now?" Gallifrey queried as he took slow and cautious steps backward toward his mother.

"My boy. It's important that you listen to Romana. She knows what she's talking about."

His eyes glowed as he dipped his head into his shoulders and adopted a hunch stance with his little fists curled at his sides. "None of you know what you're talking about," he snarled. "None of you know _anything_ about the Bad Wolf and what she does to her." He slapped his hand against his left heart. "I know. I've been there. I've seen it more than I care to admit."

"Gallifrey…"

"And I've had to heal her every single time the Wolf has come to save her cub. Not you. Not the TARDIS. You were never there to even try." He carefully watched the growing arc of Time Lords surrounding him, and ignored the sudden look of despair that fell across Ten's face at his words. "So you can back off, too." He stepped back further. "All of you."

Ten stepped forward. He held up a hand and warily approached the glowing child in front of him. "Gal. Please. Let me try. Let's set your mother up in a TARDIS and see what can be done to save her."

His eyes flashed a brilliant gold and he shook his head in response. "I already know what has to be done." He kept his eyes on his grouping of fathers, but stepped his feet on either side of Rose's hips and slowly lowered himself down into a kneel over her chest. "I love you, Dad. But if you try to stop me, I will destroy you." He turned his head to face his mother and lightly stroked his glowing hands down her cheeks. "It's alright, Mum. I'm here now."

Ten's entire stature fell into complete desolation. His voice was tiny as he shuddered out his child's name in both a plea and apology.

Gallifrey lot all focus upon his father and locked his eyes on the lids of Rose's tightly shut eyes. He inhaled a deep breath that he held as he moved his little fingers against her temple. With his exhale, he tightened his grasp against her face and forced their connection. He lifted his head and let out an anguished cry that expelled from his chest with a glittering glow of energy.

Four and Ten rushed forward immediately – Ten in an attempt to pull back his child, Four in an attempt to stop his Tenth self.

"Doctor," Four yelped. "Wait."

Ten shrugged out of his younger self's hold and challenged him with a look of defiance more appropriate for the child than the 900 year-old Time Lord. "No."

"If you try to stop this," Four warned. "Then we'll lose them both." He hooked his hand around Ten's elbow and tugged him backward. "He'll hate you for the rest of our lives."

"Agreed," Six added inside a calm, yet aggrieved voice. "And there is no way in Rassilon that I'll allow that to happen."

Ten's head dipped into his shoulders and he winced at Gallifrey's continual cry of effort, and the begging to his mother to respond to his ministrations. A tear bubbled out from between his clenched eyelids, and his face contorted in agony. "You'd rather I lose them both … again?"

The War Doctor stepped forward. There was a shake in his head, and dust in his wake, but he strode tall. "An emotional incarnation," he said with a click in his tongue. "No surprise that it was you, then, that finally broke with our own imposed rules and took yourself the woman who would be everything to each and every one of us."

"Don't hold me fully accountable," Ten argued with a flick of his hand toward Nine. "If it wasn't for him being so eager to die for her; having nothing but the love he felt for her in his hearts and on his mind when he regenerated; then maybe I wouldn't have been born such a weak-willed and emotional wreck."

Nine snorted.

War Doctor shook his head. "Think, Doctor. Before you tear our son away from saving his mother, think of what we all stand to lose." He pointed to One. "Who held us after the loss of Susan? Who was it that appeared to us as we sat alone on a bench lost and confused with no clue where to go from here? Who gave us the strength and the drive to keep going – to keep travelling the universe with a companion at our side as we saved planets and galaxies?"

Ten inhaled a shaking breath.

"Have you forgotten," Two said softly. "In whose memory it was that we found the courage to return to Gallifrey and turn ourselves in to the council."

"You mean after a failed attempt to escape," Five scoffed. He received a sheepish chuckle of agreement then nodded. "But yes." He looked back to Ten. "It was Rose's arms we fell into after the loss of Adric. When we didn't think we could possibly continue."

"She is my hope," The War Doctor continued. "When I had none. She is our salvation when we didn't think we ever deserved it. And him," he jutted his chin toward Gallifrey, who still valiantly struggled to bring his mother back using his regeneration energy. "At every point, he was there. Gallifrey: Our son. Our reminder that despite every setback and failure, we have one success in our future that will surpass anything else."

Ten blinked and swallowed thickly.

"There are eight men behind me," The War Doctor said softly. "Don't take that from them."

"You try to," Nine added in a voice of challenged that halfway encouraged him to do so, "and I'll shift the alignment of your nose across the side of your pretty face."

Ten frowned in frustrated confusion at each of his incarnations. He held out his hands down and out as he walked slowly backward toward Gallifrey and Rose. "I need the two of them more than any of you ever have – and I'm the one who's had to suffer their loss. If you think – for a second – that I want to lose either of them now, then you're very sadly mistaken." He glared at the War Doctor with aggression and fury inside his ancient brown eyes. "I'm the _emotional_ one, which means I'm also the most dangerous of all of us. You know what we're capable of in _your_ incarnation … Just imagine what I'm capable of in mine."

Every Doctor from War through to Twelve shuddered at the thought.

"I'm never losing either one of them ever again."

With those last words, Ten spun on his heel and dropped to his knees behind Rose's head. He touched his hands to Gallifrey's hair and let them slide down over his temples, along his cheeks and down onto his shoulders. "What do you think, Gal? One hundred years? One fifty? Two?"

Gallifrey panted through his tears as he looked fearfully into his father's eyes. "I'm not strong enough, Dad. I can't fix it this time. I'm trying. I am. I'm too late"

"One fifty, then," Ten said with a smile as his hands fell to cover Gallifrey's fingers over Rose's temples. "I think I can afford that much." He lifted his face to kiss at Gallifrey's forehead and then lowered his head to press their foreheads together. "Thirteen times over, even. What's thirteen times one-fifty, my smart little boy?"

"What're you doing?"

Ten closed his eyes and exhaled a breath as full of glittering energy as Gallifrey's had been. His eyes remained closed and his face contorted enough in concentration that dimples appeared in his cheeks. "Nineteen fifty. Well. At the rate I'm burning through regenerations, maybe a century is a safer option for me to give up right now. What do you think, Son? Thirteen hundred enough? Maybe? No? Yes?" He inhaled deep. "I think yes. For now, anyway."

"What're you talking about, Dad?"

"Shhh," he hushed gently with a curl that lifted his entire top lip and bared his teeth. "Thing about Time Lords and their incarnations," he whispered hoarsely. His face was still contorted in concentration and his eyes closed in a tight crease, but he managed a smile. "Is that they're a bit competitive. Can't possibly let just one of themselves have all of the fun now."

Gallifrey kept his forehead pressed tight against Ten's, but noted as each of his incarnations dutifully dropped onto their knees at his sides to surround Rose.

"Especially," Ten continued. "When they each decided to lecture me about your importance to me."

"You needed to be lectured about that?" Gallifrey gasped.

"Nope," Ten answered. "I've spent every one of my incarnations loving you both and having to say goodbye to you and your mum. In nine hundred years of my lives I've said eight hundred and Fourty three goodbyes to the two people I love more than any other." The tightness in his eyes relaxed and his entire body seemed to calm as each of his incarnations set their hands on the woman still lying on the grasses. "Never again. Not ever again."

One cupped his glowing hands around Rose's ankle and pursed his lips in a small smile as he coughed out his own energy-filled breath and closed his eyes. "Time to wake up, my precious _Arkytior._ Sleep is for the tortoises, my dear."

Two took position beside one and touched lovingly at her calf. "You are my _conscience_ and my voice of reason, my dear girl. If you don't come back to me, then who else will keep me honest?"

"You are my _home_ , when mine was taken from me," Three breathed as he settled his hands at her knee.

Four took a moment to run his fingers down her face before he took position next to Three and took a tender hold on her thigh. "As my _wife_ , my precious Rose, you swore an oath to obey. So listen up and come back to me, okay?"

Five bumped his shoulder against Four and muttered an apology to him as he drew both hands across Rose's belly. He exhaled a breath of longing and leaned forward to press his forehead on her belly in between his hands. His words were whispered against the fabric of her dress. "My guiltiest _pleasure_. Don't let the other four miss out on what we've shared, Rose. They need you just as much as I ever did."

Six was less eloquent as he took positon in between Five and Ten. He touched at Gallifrey's back with incredible tenderness. " _Innocence_ ," he breathed. "In you, in our son. Damn, Rose, I love you."

"You think you love her," Seven said with a snort as he took up position directly across from his younger self. "You don't even know what it is."

"You were me, once, and you say that with a straight face," Six growled. "If you weren't me, I'd challenge you to a duel."

"Who challenges duels these days?"

"Sorry," he admitted with a huff. "Late nineteenth century France was my last stop before here."

"Boulanger and Floquet?"

"Yes." He smiled a wide grin. "How'd you guess?

"How'd you think?" Seven grinned. "What a day that was." He stroked at Rose's shoulder. "And to you, my beloved girl. You are the _calm_ in this weary Time Lord before the onset of his storm…"

"Ahh yes," Eight sang with a smile as he sat next to Seven and kicked lightly at his umbrella to get it out of his way. "You are the reason we are the Oncoming Storm."

"That would make me the most terrifying of us all, wouldn't it?"

Eight shook his head. "I wouldn't be so sure of that, my dear fellow. A forgetful Time Lord is far more dangerous when he doesn't _remember_ that he has anything else at all to lose." He ran the crook of his finger down along the curve of Rose's breast and settled his hands on her belly. "And although I forget most things, one thing I will always _remember_ is my beloved, my child, and our shared moments."

War Doctor groaned out loudly as he dropped beside Eight. "I truly don't remember myself ever being this emotionally compromised, nor have I ever been so prone to such whimsical and soppy sodden words."

"Says the one who calls her his _hope_ ," Nine challenged as he sat beside him and stroked at Rose's hip. "You may not have said it out loud, but you certainly thought about it. For a century and a half, stuck on Gallifrey, all you dreamt about was takin' her hand an runnin' across the whole universe."

"She was the only _hope_ I had in a century and a half," War Doctor affirmed. "I lost it all. Hope, that is."

"I know," Nine agreed as he danged his fingers on her hip and drew them to her thigh. "So I took her hand on both our behalves and told her to _run_ with me."

"And we never stopped, did we?" Ten cut in with a smile. His eyes were still closed, and he made no effort to look at any of his incarnations.

"Still doing it," Eleven sang as he flopped down in an uncoordinated heap beside Nine. His drop had him bump his hip and shoulder against the leather clad Time Lord, but he made no apologies. "Still running," he did manage to say. "Even with babes on her hip and inside her womb, she's still taking my hand and running at my side."

Nine raked his eyes up and down the lanky form of his future self. He shook his head. "Just how old are you by Earth standards? Twelve? Are you often confused for being her son instead of her husband?"

"Actually, I am," he answered with a smug smile. "Quite frequently. Long story as to just why, but the mistaking of identities does occur quite frequently. Doesn't help that we do look identical and both often travel with the same name – more for convenience than anything else." He tapped his fingers on Rose's knee. "Although the confusion can tend to lead to disaster when the wife, or _wives_ get us confused. I won't go into the disastrous effect it had on our intimacy in the beginning there. A Hair cut, a rather necessary change of attire and a few more workouts in the TARDIS gym solved that issue…." He caught Five's flat look. "What?"

"I'm sickened. Really I am."

He shrugged. "So was Rose, but we worked through it." He leaned down to press a kiss on her knee. "Pinstripes might have offered her forever, but this girl. Oh she's more than that. She's my _eternity_."

"And if you don't all stop yapping about it," Twelve growled with a frustrated frown in his brows. "Then we're all going to lose the opportunity to continue to meet up once every lifestime to discuss it, aren't we?" He took hold of Rose's ankle and closed his eyes as his wrists and hands warmed up to glow in front of him. "You all natter these whimsical adjectives for the woman we all love, and we forget the most important thing about her – the best descriptive in the English language."

Nine offered a hard look. "What's that?"

" _Rose_." He answered simply. "Just Rose." There were grunts and sounds of agreement from twelve men, but he didn't let himself smile a smug grin. Instead he knitted his thick brows together and closed his eyes tight. "Now come on, Lads. Let's help out our boy and get our Rose Tyler back on her feet."

Eleven winced as he closed his eyes and leaned a little closer toward his older self. "He's not going to be happy, Ten, I mean."

"Were you?"

"Nope."

Twelve exhaled hard. "Neither was I."

"Still…"

"Just shut up."

As each man closed his eyes, grit his teeth and hissed out breaths containing pure regeneration energies, the entire pasture lit up into brilliant amber light.


	53. Hello Goodbye

A/N: You would think, being on vacation, that I'd have time to write, yeah?

No, apparently not. Apparently vacations mean that you have to do ... stuff ... lots of stuff ... lots of stuff you didn't know that you had to do and you normally wouldn't do because this kind've ... stuff ... isn't normal .. stuff...

Two chapters left to go... (or three depending on how the next chapter goes. Might split it if necessary. We'll see)

I hope you all had a great New Year's! 2016 already! Where in Gallifrey did 2015 go?!

Here's hoping you enjoy. I'm feeling a little rusty on the writing front ... I hate taking breaks!

~~oooOOOooo~~

Irving Braxiatel watched the glowing ball of regeneration light with a furrow in his perfectly manicured brow and a fold in his arms across his chest. He allowed himself to give a light shake in his head in concern, but shielded his concern quickly with a smooth turn toward Andred.

"Order you men to forget what they'll see this evening."

Andred bit at his lip and let one brow drop over one eye. He shook his head and expelled a sharp breath. "I've counted fourteen different laws that the Doctor has broken tonight – and that's before I've counted how many of him are here right now."

"I would suggest each of his incarnations have responded to Gallifrey's Security Protocol call," Braxiatel muttered quietly before he slid a look of warning toward the Chancellery guard commander. "And how many Gallifreyan laws have you violated with your presence here on Earth?"

"Four," he answered quickly, "However, two of those are negated due to the fact that I'm here following your orders." He paused and gave a single sided smirk. "I find it worth mentioning that you're rather swiftly increasing your own count."

Braxiatel smiled a wide grin and half-bowed in response. "How delightful that due to my station upon Gallifrey that I'm immune to prosecution."

"Yes," Andred droned with a roll in his eyes. "How fortunate for you."

A young Chancellery guard stepped forward and used his firearm to point at the four people currently on their knees at their feet. "Commander. What are we doing with these criminals?"

Andred's eyes checked over the movements of his men as they shackled each of the Family members using cuffs that engulfed the entire hand of the captured. "We're keeping them contained until Chancellor Braxiatel orders otherwise," he answered smoothly. He then smirked toward the patriarch of the group. "As per _my_ orders, however, feel free to shoot any of them who decide to move."

"Feel free to administer lethal force if any of them try to escape," Briaxiatel added darkly.

"Under what grounds?" the young guard queried with a wince of question and a tilt in his head. "We don't typically apply lethal force…"

"If the arrested parties are Gallifreyan," Braxiatel spat sharply. "These pieces of garbage are of a lesser species looking to murder a son of Gallifrey as a means to extend their own lifespan." He curled a lip and looked down into Father-of-Mine's sneering face. "It's only because it is the right of the Doctor to choose punishment that they're all still alive." He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and leaned forward to look closer at the alien man on the ground in front of him. "Because if I had my way, I'd have you and your family destroyed right here, right now."

Father-of-Mine shifted uncomfortably on his knees but managed to sneer up at the only man not wearing a uniform. "You're taking this rather personally, aren't you?"

"The Time Lord that you had originally targeted," Braxiatel began as he straightened his back and clasped his hands behind him. "He's my brother."

Father-of-Mine's expression fell slightly. "Your _brother?_ "

"Yes," Braxiatel answered with a disinterested curl of his lip around a swallow. He let his eyes shift to the glowing scene still playing out in the near distance. "And the child that you also decided to target is my brother's son. In other words, he's my young nephew." He inhaled deeply and clasped his hands a little tighter together behind his back. "Now, the reputation of the relationship between my brother and myself suggests that we are tenuous at best, which is essentially quite accurate. He and I do tend to view pretty much everything on polar ends of the spectrum."

Andred gave a laugh at that. "It's a documented historical fact, actually."

Braxiatel smirked, but cleared his throat instead of joining in on the chuckle. "There is one thing that he and I agree on, and will _always_ agree on." His hands shifted the slide deeply into his trouser pockets. "And that's the lengths that the both of us will go to in order to protect that child." His eyes shifted to Father-of-Mine. "I'm sure that you can appreciate that sentiment, being an obvious proponent of the familial unit and your responsibilities to them as the patriarch of that unit."

"I…"

"The loss of my brother would hurt me greatly," Braxiatel continued in a lecturing tone. "Contrary to popular belief among the Lords of Gallifrey, it would honestly break my hearts if something were to happen to him and I didn't attempt to intervene." He carded one hand through his hair. "True to the reputation of the Lords of Gallifrey, my outward reaction may well be subdued to the point of complete indiscernibility." He exhaled ruefully. "We are rather well trained in being able to suppress our emotions and appear to be completely ice-cold and unfeeling. There is such importance put upon preserving our reputation."

Father-of-Mine opened his mouth to speak, but was quickly silenced by Braxiatel sharply raising a finger to demand that he say nothing to interrupt.

"And while the preservation of our stone-cold reputation is imperative," Braxiatel continued. "The preservation of our species overrules any other tradition, expectation and rule imposed upon Council Members and Time Lords. That means," he practically sang. "That you mean to harm a child member of our species, then you become fair game – especially when that child Time Lord is a member of my immediate family." He let out a growl. "The only reason that any of you are still breathing is because I believe that your fate should rest in the hands of the child's father. If it was up to me, you'd all have been executed the moment my capsule materialized."

Father-of-Mine flicked his eyes up at him. "You don't have…"

"And no one would never know about it," Braxiatel continued.

Father-of-Mine flicked his eyes up to the team of five Chancellery Guards surrounding them. "They would."

He bent yet lower. "You say that like they'd care."

Father-of-Mine let his eyes shift to a young guard looking uncomfortable at the rear of the grouping. He grinned. "Oh, but I think one or two of them might."

Braxiatel lifted his eyes to the young guard and kept his eyes on that guard as he smiled and leaned down to speak into Father-of-Mine's ear. "Oh, if I were you I wouldn't confuse this guard's apparent discomfort indicating that they wouldn't be the first one in line if I gave the kill order." He straightened up and gave the guard a wink. "I believe that the only reason she hasn't already swiftly dispatched you all is because of her affections toward the Time Lord you'd originally targeted." He held out his hand to the guard. "Am I correct, Leelandredloomsagwinaechegesima?"

The guard stepped forward and removed her helmet. She sighed as she shook out her long brunette hair and attempted to adjust her uniform tunic. "Leela, please, Chancellor Braxiatel," she corrected shortly. "As I find the Gallifreyan clothing to be cumbersome and restricting, so do I find your naming protocols."

"And such is the curse that you invoke when you fall in love with a Gallifreyan, my dear Leela."

She rolled her eyes and pushed past him to make her way toward the Doctors. "I would be most curious, then, to know just what new moniker you've designed for Rose."

"It's quite remarkable," he shot back with amusement. "High Gallifreyan in all its regal splendour. Would you like to hear it?"

"I'd rather not," she answered him with a shake of her head as she walked across the grass. "Now if you'll excuse me, Brax. The Doctor requested that I assist with the protection and removal of both Rose and Gallifrey from here when they've all finished doing their … thing." She held up a syringe and gave enough of a squeeze against the plunger that it spat out the smallest amount of cloudy-white fluid. "And judging by what that incredibly handsome incarnation of himself has told me…"

"Leela, please," Andred whined. "I'm right _here_. Your husband, remember?"

She continued on as though Andred hadn't spoken. "She's going to need this, or we'll _all_ end up dead."

"Why?" Braxiatel queried cautiously. "What has he told you?"

She looked toward Andred. "And I wouldn't be jealous, husband. I know what he ends up looking like."

"Not helping," he called back.

"All of you," Braxiatel huffed. "Watch over our prisoners, will you? Prepare them for transport to Gallifrey." He looked to Father-of-Mine. "I know my brother well enough to know that he'll have you face Gallifreyan justice over ordering your death." He smirked. "Our justice system and the methods of sentencing will very likely make you wish that he wasn't such a soft-hearted fool."

Joan looked up tearfully to him. "Take mercy on us."

"How can you ask that of me," Braxiatel snapped quickly. "When you were ready to kill my brother and his young child?"

"Their deaths would've been merciful," she answered smoothly. "Swift and merciful."

Braxiatel had to laugh. "Swift and merciful? Well." He stopped laughing. "Two words that don't ever belong in the same sentence as the words _Time_ and _Lord_." He turned his back to them. "At least not when referencing the repercussions to be set down on a piece of filth species like yours."

"But…"

"A _child_ ," he spat with revulsion. "Going after a millennium-aged adult Time Lord is one thing – but to go after a _child_?" He shook his head and curled a disgusted lip. "There is a special place of eternal fire set aside for you and your kind."

"Again I ask for mercy under the Shadow Proclamation."

"Yeah," he gruffed dismissively. "I'll get right on that." He followed the trail in the grass left by Leela and spoke over his shoulder. "Andred. Keep them contained and prepare them for transport – they're waiting for them in council chambers."

He ignored any other comments from the family or from the men as he trudged through the grass atop expensive leather shoes. The regeneration energy ahead of him was quickly dimming out, but he had enough residual light to be able to see the darkening of the leather because of the dew on the grasses. He raised his head and groaned his displeasure to the stars above.

"These shoes were bespoke," he complained. "Made from the leather of Uarfie - an extremely rare beast from Qulfe."

"Oh don't speak rubbish," Romana growled as he reached where she and Martha stood in silent wait. "That leather is of no higher grade than a Piesy."

"Since when were you a specialist in leather, Romana?"

"Oh," she answered with a song and a smile. "I took a study in the Academy."

His brow flicked. "There are no lectures on Leather in the curriculum at the Academy."

"What are we looking at here," she said with a quick change in topic. "This isn't something I've ever seen a paper on back at the academy."

Braxiatel spared enough time to roll his eyes and smile slightly, but quickly dropped his eyes to where the Doctor, all of his incarnations and young Gallifrey sat on and around Rose Tyler. He inhaled a deep sniff of the air, and then flicked out his tongue to taste it.

"There's so much Lindos in the air that one could make a meal out of it," he answered gently. "But I can't see that an actual regeneration has taken place."

"Looked like one to me," Romana muttered indignantly.

"What would be the purpose in that?" Braxiatel growled incredulously.

"Gallifrey was regenerating," Romana ventured. "Perhaps each of them decided to…"

"Regenerating doesn't counteract a regeneration," he snapped in response. "It would be a foolhardy and pointless exercise for him to do that, and he knows it."

"Then I don't know," Romana breathed along a high note. "I have no idea. All I saw was Gal using his energy to try and save Rose, and then him…" She indicated the array of Doctors with a wave of her hand. "…all of _him_ decided to jump in and do the same."

Braxiatel's brows shot high, and he gave a smile of pride. "How very clever of him."

"Please don't say that too loud," Martha pleaded. "At least not within his earshot."

"Then allow me to add on an additional: That mad fool has broken yet another twenty-thousand Gallifreyan laws."

Romana looked worried. "What did he do, Brax?"

Braxiatel looked to the two women. "I think that the Doctor may just created his very own version of the Chameleon Arch."

Martha winced. "That is as scary as it sounds, yeah?"

"Yeah," Romana sang worriedly. "A little." She shot a look toward Braxiatel. "And if he has, then you know that she needs a proper transitional management regime and constant monitoring to ensure that it doesn't revert."

"I know," Braxiatel moaned.

"It shouldn't even be possible," Romana continued with a hint of anger in her voice. "By the Gods, Brax. She's just a Human. There is no possible way she could withstand torture like that and him hope to have her come out of it in one piece."

"Again, I know."

"We have to take her – and very likely young Gal – back to Gallifrey. There's no telling what he's done to her and what the repercussions are going to be for the two of them. Only _our_ species can properly evaluate and counter any adverse effects."

"Yes, I know."

"And how the Doctor proposes that we do this without being discovered will be another issue that needs to be addressed. The council will destroy her _and_ Gallifrey, but not after they've tortured the two of them with experiment after painful experiment."

"Am I using this on Rose, or you, Romana," Leela snarled impatiently as she held up the syringe. "I know he said Rose, but I'm rather close to changing the intended recipient to you – if only to shut you up."

Romana turned quickly toward Leela and narrowed her eyes at her as she raked a searing gaze up and down the woman's body. "You know what happened here?"

Leela nodded.

"Then what?" Romana queried quickly. "What happened? Tell us so we know how to handle it."

Leela shrugged. "I know only what his Eighth self told me when he interrupted their wedding a month ago," she answered. "He had me set up a few things in a home of Gallifrey and prepare for hers and Gallifrey's arrival and treatment." She held up the syringe. "And according to him, this is going to be necessary. All though I don't know why, she does seem like such a soft hearted girl."

"And you are such an aggressive warrior princess," Romana shot back with high brows and a smile of tease. The smile quickly fell. "Is that all he told you?"

Leela shook her head. "He also told me that his fourth self will be at her side for the duration of their stay on Gallifrey, which will be approximately six months." She looked apologetic. "Which means you'll also be on Gallifrey for that time frame."

"Unless I choose to stay here with his Tenth self for that duration," Romana half pleaded. "I'm not ready to return just now. I negotiated for extra time off Gallifrey with Council. If I head back with him, then I'll be held to my commitments and I'm simply not ready for that just yet."

There was a holler from the grouping of Time Lords, which immediately ended the rest of the discussion. Martha, Romana and Braxiatel watched as Rose suddenly let out a yell and suddenly sit bolt upright on the grasses. Her eyes were aglow and her breath escaped her lungs with a repeated puff of golden breath.

Rose thrust her hands outward and then snapped them to her temples. She let out a panicked and confused cry as she contracted into herself. "What happened? What?" Her eyes locked on her child sprawled unconscious and panting across her lap. With a look of horror, she pulled him up against her chest and begged to know what had happened to him.

Ten battled to answer her questions, but was unable to fully get her attentions as she rocked Gallifrey against her chest and cried for answers.

"Rose. Rose," he chanted softly from behind her. "Listen to me. It's okay. Gal's okay. He's just exhausted, that's all."

Rose ignored him, even as his arms circled her from behind and he pulled her against his chest. He nestled his head against hers as she continued to rock herself and her child and continued to try and draw her attention to him; to his words against her ear.

She could feel the brush of his gelled hair against her cheek and smell the pure essence of him, but it did little to calm her. She dragged her eyes through the gathering of men and snatched her child tighter against her chest. "Who are you all," she growled on a low and threatening voice. "What did you do to him?"

Four leaned forward and put his hand on Rose's leg. "Rose, love. It's me, the Doctor – _your_ Doctor." He touched his fingers to her cheek and guided her gaze to meet his. "Look at me, Sweetheart. Right here. That's it. Look at me."

Rose met his eyes and she softened. The glow in her eyes dimmed and then disappeared. "Doctor?" She looked down at her son. "What happened to Gal?" She looked around. "Who are all of these people?"

Ten answered the question with his breath against her neck. "They're me."

Rose stiffened. "You?"

"All thirteen of me," he clarified. "One through thirteen, Rose."

Her voice came out in a whisper. "Why?"

"You and Gal were in trouble, we all came to help."

She tilted her head to the side in a movement that nestled her cheek against Ten. Her eyes, however, shifted to Four. "What happened?"

"The family," Five offered softly. "They accosted you and our child. We all got the alert from TARDIS and came to assist."

"My very own Knights of Camelot," she whispered quietly.

"Knights of TARDIS, thank you," Nine ground out indignantly. "Camelot, indeed. Medieval pretty boys on horseback. I'll pass on that. Don't much like horses, me."

Rose's eyes widened at his voice. One hand flew to cover her mouth. "Doctor? Oh my Doctor." Her hand reached out to brush her fingertips against the shell of his ear. Her breath shuddered when he leaned in to her touch. "It's really you."

"Yes, my dear Arkytior," One answered gently. "As my Ninth self indicated. We are your Knights of TARDIS."

Eight gave her a wink. "Whenever you need us. Always with you, Love."

Rose winced a perplexed expression and shook her head. "No. No this isn't right. You can't cross your own timestream. You can't. You told me that."

"When it involves you, Rose," Four said gently with a wide smile that spread across his cheeks. "Then we'll break all the rules."

Rose began to pant and shook her head. Her face contorted in pain and she clutched at her head and let out a cry. "God. My head."

Ten clutched her tighter. "Rose. Come to the TARDIS, let her check you out."

Rose shook her head as her hand fell to her chest and she panted worriedly. "My heart. It's racing. My God, I can feel it wanting to jump out of my chest."

Nine looked fiercely at his next incarnation. "TARDIS. Now!"

Ten nodded. "I agree. Come on, Rose. Off to the TARDIS with you. Time for a bit of a checkup to make sure that you're all hunky dory."

She shook her head. "No."

Ten looked with confusion toward Four before he redirected his gaze to Rose. "No?"

Rose tried to shrug out of the Doctor's hold. "What've you done to me, Doctor? Why do I feel so … wrong?" She panted. "Have I been drugged?"

"Oh no. no no no nononono no no," Ten chanted in varying speeds of delivery as she struggled for freedom. "You're okay, Rose. Just need a kip in the TARDIS. That's all."

"Oh here we go," Leela peppered out as she offered a slightly worried look and then jogged across the grass toward the grouping. "It's okay, Doctor, I'm here."

Four snapped his attention toward Leela as Nine and Ten tried to soothe Rose, who was rapidly rising in a disorientated panic. "Leela? What're you doing here?"

"You told me to come," she answered as she dodged a flailing arm and grabbed for the other. She flicked her eyes very quickly to Eight in hope that just _which_ one of him had told her to come. "Now if you don't mind. We need to settle this wriggling panther down."

"Wolf," Rose corrected with eyes aglow. "I'm the wolf."

Leela masked a peep with a hum and snatched at Rose's right arm. "Apologies," she managed meekly as she jostled for an injection point.

"Left shoulder," Eight hollered. "It'll only work if injected into the nerve cluster in her left."

"Then you do it," she snapped as she threw the syringe toward him. "You're the bleeding Doctor, not me."

Eight snatched the syringe from the air and immediately thrust it into Rose's left shoulder. He depressed the plunger to inject the full contents of the syringe. He shuddered at the look of accusation thrown at him from both Rose and the Time Lord seated behind her. "Sorry, Rose. I'm sorry I have to do this to you, but it's the only way."

"Doctor," she whined as she quickly settled and slumped against Ten's chest. "Why'd you do this?" Her voice was slurred and lazy. "Why'd you do that, Doctor?"

His head shifted forward to press his forehead against hers. "I'm sorry, Rose. I love you. I did it because I love you."

Ten shoved at him as Rose fell limp and silent against his chest. "What in the name of the Gods did you do that for? She's scared and she's worried about her child, and you drug her?"

"I had to," he vowed with upset clouding his voice. "It's the only way to keep us all safe and to get her back to Gallifrey for treatment."

Ten's eyes flashed wide. "To take her _where_?"

Eleven stretched his arms forward to pull Gallifrey into his hold. He juggled the child lightly against his chest. "Doctor. It's where she has to go. TARDIS isn't equipped to deal with what's happening to her. She doesn't know what's happening and how to work with it."

"What's wrong with her," Ten pleaded. "What can be wrong with her that I can't fix?"

Twelve took Rose's wrist in his and took her pulse. He smiled at the steady strump-thump-thump under his fingers. "It's not something wrong, per se." He raised his eyes to Ten. "It's actually a good thing – but not something we can put to the TARDIS right now." He shook his head. "No. The old girl wouldn't like it too much if we go about changing our personal histories. She and Rose have to head back to Gallifrey – and you know that you can't be the one to take her there."

Ten shot a look of accusation toward Four. "So he gets to take her there, then? He's the one who's going to take my family away from me?"

"You're talking about yourself," Six snapped. "What part of you has forgotten that you're a Time Lord talking about your younger self's motives? Do you seriously think that he's going to destroy his own life by taking his wife away from himself?"

"I'm not saying good bye to them again," Ten shot back. "Not again. I just got them back. I'm not giving them up again – not even to myself."

"So instead you're willing to risk their lives," Seven charged. "For your own selfishness?" He shook his head. "You have to trust that this time, she's with _you_ and therefore she and Gal will be returned to _you."_

Ten shook his head as he battled against his own emotions. "Please don't take them away from me again. Please." He let his eyes pass by each man younger than himself. "Your turn to be me is coming. Do you really want to put yourself through this?" He sniffed a wet sniff. "You don't get how much this hurts."

"We do," Eight argued. "Each one of us knows what it's like to say goodbye to her. Don't think for a second that any of us are looking forward to this moment."

Eleven nodded. "Trust me, Doctor. It's worth it."

Ten looked tearfully to Twelve and then to Eleven. "They come back?"

Eleven grinned widely. "Yeah. They do. Both of them."

"Sooner than you think," Twelve assured him.

Ten shook his head and clutched at her tighter. "But I can't. Not again. Please not again."

"She comes back to us," Eleven assured him. "Like she always does."

He inhaled a shaking breath. "And if she doesn't? What if this is where our causal loop fractures and I never see them again?"

"It won't happen."

Nine rose to his feet and brushed off his thighs. "This isn't where the loop fractures," he assured him gruffly. "Trust yourself and let them go. You'll get them back."

"How are you so sure of that?"

Nine shook his head and turned his back on the group. "I just do, okay?" He dropped his fists at his side and cracked his neck to one side. He inhaled a breath and strode back toward his TARDIS. "It doesn't end with you," he whispered to himself as he approached his faded blue box that whined sympathetically to his solemn return. "Because it ends with us. Doesn't it old girl?"

He touched his fingers to the wooden door and sighed heavily. He stopped just short of opening the door when he heard a disappointed click of a tongue. He tipped his head to the side and looked at a figure of a women leaning up against the corner of the old time ship. His eyes widened when she gave him a shake of her head and tutted lightly.

"Rose?"

"And just where do you think you're headed off to, Doctor?"


	54. Nine and Rose

A/N: Okay ... so I did end up having to break up the chapter... This one took on a life of its very own.

So ... Two left!

I certainly hope you enjoy ... Nine and Rose .. I'd like to think there's nothing that can't be enjoyed with these two .. but who knows. :)

~~oooOOOooo~~

Her voice and the teasing manner by which she asked her question would normally strike him a little in his gut and force him to respond with a snip and cut. His big old Time Lord brain was rather swiftly providing him with a choice of snarky retorts that would most definitely protect his reputation of…

Reputation? In _this_ incarnation? He'd only been in this body for all of five minutes… Well. Not _five minutes_. It had actually been a rather eventful fifty two hours, three minutes and seven seconds since his regeneration.

It took him only fourty eight hours, fifteen minutes and twelve seconds to blow it all to Hades. Somehow he managed to screw it all up. For some reason the causal loop that had probably turned, twisted and looped for millennia was going to break and shatter during his time.

His punishment for pressing the button of his sonic to activate the weapon that destroyed his planet and his entire species…

He lowered his head and gaze, but didn't get to close his eyes in self-pity before he caught sight of her: A tiny little blonde, blue-eyed creature dressed in a pink onesie with a white and pink tulle tu-tu around the waist and little ballet slippers attached as the feet of her little pyjamas. She – the creature was obviously a female humanoid – sucked a rapid succession of draws on a pacifier designed to make it look like she had big lips and gigantic crooked front teeth and clutched tightly against Rose's calf. She looked through a wispy blonde fringe at him with a wide-eyed expression that the Doctor could only assume meant that she was sizing him up.

And he, the Oncoming Storm, Destroyer of Worlds, Saviour of the Universe, the Time Lord who vowed never to be cowardly, found himself somewhat terrified of this little creature that couldn't be any older than about fifteen months old.

"Thirteen," Rose corrected with a smile as she stooped to pick the small child up off the grass. "Eve's first birthday was a month ago.

"One," The Doctor began as his eyes followed the journey of young Eve from the grass onto Rose's hip. "Did I say that out loud and Two: Eve?"

Rose smiled. "One: No, you didn't say it out loud, but after two centuries together, I've learned to read your thoughts through the look in your eyes – you are much more of an open book than you think you are."

"That's a terrifying thought."

Rose had to chuckle at that. She looked down to her child, who had ceased sizing up the Doctor and now whined past her pacifier as she reached up both hands to him. "Two: this is Eveblianarkytiorlungbarrowmas. We call her Eve for short. She's your daughter." Rose peeped as Eve extended her lean toward the Doctor and whimpered as her little fingers wriggled desperately for him. "And she's a daddy's girl, so you might want to take her before she goes into melt-down." She held the child out to him. "Time Tot tantrums are a little on the _extreme_ side of things."

There was a crease in his brow as he timidly extended his arms. "Can't have that, I suppose." He pulled her in against his chest and poked affectionately at the tip of her nose with his finger. She giggled a smile around her pacifier, which drew a smile from the weary Time Lord. "Tiny little thing, aren't you, Eve? Not a big fan of a fussy little tot, me, so no crying."

"You're usually the only one who can calm her down when she does, so she's all yours for now." Rose smiled fondly as Eve immediately settled in against the Doctor's chest with a rapid suck on her pacifier and the fluttering of big blue eyes. "She's been a little fussy since you took off in the TARDIS."

He could feel heat in the little body in the crook of his arm, even through his leather jacket, and there was noticeable puffiness in her eyes. He flicked his eyes up to Rose. "A _little_?"

Rose slumped. "Full melt down," she admitted with a groan. "We had to commandeer Aryea's TARDIS to come and find you. Fortunately, the TARDIS is as much of a sap to her daughters as you are, so it wasn't too difficult to track you down."

He held up a hand and frowned as his head shook. "Hold on, what did you just say? Daughters, as in _plural_?"

Rose opened her mouth to speak.

He didn't let her get a word out. "As in for TARDIS _and_ myself?"

She opened her mouth to speak again.

Once again, he didn't let her. "No. Please don't answer that. Please." He looked down at the little girl bubbling underneath her pacifier. His expression fell to pain and sorrow. "I don't want to know what I've lost."

Rose's head tilted to one side as her brows knitted in confusion. "Lost, Doctor?" She shook her head. "I don't understand. We're all together and have been for centuries."

He bounced the child held along one arm as she fussed gently in response to his building emotional turmoil. "I messed it up, Rose."

Rose stepped in closer to the Doctor, bringing herself close enough to provide a loving front to her child. She used the tip of her finger to sweep Eve's fringe out of her eyes. "Messed what up, Doctor?"

"This," he answered shortly. "Us." He inhaled a shaking breath and dropped to press a kiss at Eve's forehead when the child let out a quiet series of little cries. He whispered across the softest skin that he'd ever touched. "You said no, Rose. I asked you to come with me, and you said no."

Her breath caught for the briefest of seconds as she listened to the break in his voice. Her own voice fell so that it came out as tiny as the little girl in the Doctor's arms. "I said no?"

"London," he clarified. "March, 2005. Nestine Consciousness." He inhaled a shaking breath. "I took your hand, Rose. I took your hand in the basement of Henricks and told you to run, and Rose." He touched at her cheek. "You did. You ran with me. You saw the TARDIS for the first time and it didn't scare you. _I_ didn't scare you. I told you I was an alien, and it didn't bother you at all."

Her voice was almost a whisper. "I was actually excited about that," she admitted. "And the TARDIS, I was instantly in love with her."

"Then why would you say no?" he queried on a small voice. "Is it Mickey? Are you more in love with him in this timestream than in any other?"

"Where are you?" she queried without elaborating.

"Am I more gruff, more unlikable in this incarnation, in this timestream?" He winced and rubbed a palm down his face. "And Mickey. Was he always that annoying?"

"Doctor," she pressed. "Where are you in your timeline right now?"

"Really, Rose," he continued as he dipped his head to allow his daughter to hug him around the neck as her extended little arms asked him to. His face creased with emotion as he felt the rhythmic pull of her pacifier against his jaw as her little head nestled against his. "Mickey? What were you thinking? He's an idiot. Nothing fantastic about him at all."

"Answer my question," Rose warned gently. "Where in your timeline are you right now?"

"I left London a few hours ago."

Rose nodded slowly. "You left _me_ a few hours ago?"

"Four hours, thirty seven minutes and fourteen seconds ago – if you want me to be more precise."

She gave a single soft laugh. "Always, Doctor."

"We worked so well together," he said on a sigh. "You are so clever, so curious, so open to even the most insane of ideas." He paused as his daughter grabbed at his bottom lip and tugged firmly on it. His eyes shifted to hers with an expression of defeat at the hands of a tiny little girl. "Guess she wants me to stop talking?"

"No," Rose assured as she gently removed Eve's fingers from the Doctor's lip. "Like you, she likes the sound of your voice."

"Smart girl."

"Like her dad," she replied with a smirk. The smirk fell fast. "Doctor. Did you ask me only once to join you?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Rose clarified gently. "Did you dematerialize the TARDIS and then rematerialize and ask me again?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes with enough indignation to roll his head with it. "I never ask more than once." He kept his child nestled close to him, but pointed at her sharply. "I am a Time Lord, and Time Lords don't beg – especially not to ignorant apes. If you don't want to travel with me, then you don't." He sniffed. "Why should I ask twice?"

"I'm an ignorant ape, then?"

His lips pursed in sheepish guilt. "I didn't say that."

"No? Then how about I give you a moment to go over what you just said." She flicked her fingers at his gaped mouth. "Go ahead. I'll wait. Use that big old superior Time Lord brain of yours to remember what you just said and the implications of it."

His jaw flapped a little.

"It's okay. I'll wait," she sang as she made a deliberate show of checking her watch. "It's not like I'm unused to hearing you insult my species and all others when you get frustrated."

"Okay," he huffed apologetically. "I'm sorry. I won't say that again."

"Of course you will," she breathed as her arms folded across her chest. "It's one of your more endearing qualities."

"I'm sure it is."

"Tell me, Doctor. When you left me, did you dematerialize the TARDIS, then rematerialize …"

"I never ask twice," he confirmed sharply. "Never." He looked down at his daughter as she poked at the small rise under his jumper that was his bonding pendant. "Not even for you." He took Eve's hand in his and gently told her not to poke and play at his chest while he and her mother were talking.

Rose let out a huff of a breath. "Yep. That's right. Forgot how stubborn you were in this incarnation."

"It's not being stubborn," he challenged. "It's being smart."

"Which you are in droves," she muttered with a roll of her eyes.

"We both know I am," he shot back with a smirk. "I'm _brilliant_."

"And who am I – a lowly ape – to disagree?"

"Precisely."

She cleared her throat and slouched on her hip. "Well, then, my brilliant Lord of Time. Do tell me how it makes you so very clever to only ever ask once."

"I shouldn't have to plead my case to a potential companion," he groused. "If you don't want to come with me, then don't."

"But I did," Rose countered sharply. "I became your companion, and then the mother of your children and your wife."

"And in this timeline you don't," he snapped sharply. "You said no. You chose Mickey the Idiot over me this time around."

Eve wriggled in his hold and whimpered as she tried to find comfort by burying her face into the crook of his neck. He gave a frown at the child's discomfort. "We should lower our tone of voice," he suggested. "It's upsetting her."

"No," Rose corrected. "Your distress is upsetting her." She thrust her hands forward to lift their child into a better position against the Doctor's shoulder. "Hold her like this," she advised tenderly. "Sway and bounce the two of you together like you're dancing. That's how you always calm her down – especially when you're the one being the prat."

"You know," he began as he followed her direction and swiftly settled his fussing daughter. "I really am impressed how you can say that in such a way that if I wasn't properly listening to you I could believe you were telling me you loved me – not that you were calling me a prat."

"Oh Doctor," she breathed with a smile as she rolled up onto her toes and pressed a kiss into the very side of his mouth. "I'm very practiced in the art of insulting a rude Time Lord when he's otherwise distracted."

Seemingly distracted by her actions over her words, the Doctor quickly cupped the back of her head to pull her back toward him. He held her just short of making the final connection. "Just so you know, Rose Tyler. No matter how distracted you think I am, I will _always_ hear what you say."

The Doctor closed the distance between them, and much to the apparent delight of their child who giggled in his ear, locked Rose in a hard, tight, but brief kiss that showed passion enough to leave her completely breathless as he released her mouth with a pop.

She swayed in place and found herself extending her chin in a suppressed attempt to reclaim his mouth. After a couple of swallows and a bite at her lower lip, she finally rocked down off her toes.

"You know," she said with a voice an octave higher than normal. "I've made out and made love with each one of your incarnations across the centuries when you've needed me…"

The memories of each of those encounters made him smile. "When I've needed you most," he corrected. His fingers moved into her hair and his thumb stroked at her cheek. "Rose Tyler. I need you every moment of every day. It was only when that need became necessity that I could come to you."

She pressed her finger to his lips and watched its movement as she trailed it over the top, then bottom lip, and then down over his chin. "The one incarnation of you that I have always wondered about; that I really want to _get to know_ in that sense is this one. You. My Leather-Doctor."

"Rose…"

"You're the one who started it all, Doctor. You." She lowered her eyes to his hand and then slid her fingers into his. "You know it all began with _run_ , don't you?" She lifted her eyes to his. "All this. All of this. It's all because of you." She gasped when she felt his hand tighten around hers. "I fell in love with you before I loved the pretty boy in a pinstripe suit." She grinned. "And now the gangly youngster with floppy hair."

"So I'm your first Doctor," he said with reverence as he looked into her eyes that shone with the smile across her cheeks. "The first you loved."

"My very first," she vowed. "They say you never fully get over your first love, Doctor." She raked her nails over his closely cropped hair. "And even though I'm in love with all of you – even the crackly grumpy ones – you'll always be the one I'll never get over."

"And I'll also be the incarnation you'll never make love with," he whispered sadly.

"Why not?" she asked fearfully.

"Because it began and then ended with me." He tugged at her hand to tug her closer to him. His free arm moved across her shoulder and he held her face into his neck. "I'm sorry, Rose."

"Go back," she pleaded as she quickly thread her arms around his waist and stepped in closer to him. "Go back and ask me again."

"No, Rose," he murmured tearfully. "I can't."

Rose stepped back from him and swiped her fingers across her cheek to pull her hair off her teary cheeks. "Why not? Pride? Because your pride is more important than this? Than us? Than all of our beautiful kids?"

"That's not it," he growled shortly. "That's not it at all."

"Then why?" She sniffed and raised her head to look down along her cheek at him. "Why is it you want to give all of us up?"

"I killed them all," he responded quietly. "All of them, Rose. I killed them all."

The hammer fell and Rose winced. In his timeline he was only a couple of days past ending the Time War. He was a man born of battle and bloodshed and was by no means healed, nor had he even begun to heal…

…That had been _her_ calling to help him heal from that.

"Doctor," she breathed sadly. "I'm so sorry."

"You were there," he continued. "You know what I did, and what I had to do. How can you tell me that I deserve you and the kids?" He paused. "And just _how many_ are there?"

"Not telling," she countered quickly. "But, Doctor. Of anyone in the whole of the universe, you're the one who deserves happiness the most."

He pressed his lips together and shook his head. "No. No I don't." His head dropped to a pair of little hiccups against his shoulder. He looked down into a pair of reddening blue eyes. "Oh no," he chanted worriedly. "Oh no no. You can't cry, Eve. Please don't start cryin'."

"Flutterwing," Rose corrected with encouragement. "You call her Flutterwing. And settle down, Doctor. She's reading your upset…"

"I'm shielding," he corrected briskly.

"That's worse," she blurted. "So much worse. You never shield yourself from them – from any of them. For God's sake don't do it now."

The hiccupping from Eve increased quickly until it became a full desperate wail. The Doctor quickly snatched the child off his shoulder, fighting against her desperately clawing hands, and tried to give her back to her mother. "Rose…"

"I've got her," Eleven called as he basically swooped in and rescued the tiny little girl from Nine's arms. He held her underneath her arms and held her up in front of him. He gave her a beaming smile and drew her back into his chest. "Oh my little flutterwing. What's got you all in a bother now, then, hey?"

Rose looked over her shoulder to Eleven. "Eve's upset because you're being an unreasonable ass."

Nine shot her a look of hurt. "I'm being a _what_?"

"Oh you heard me," she shot back.

Eleven held his child against his chest and lightly danced in an attempt to quieten her down. "Ahh," he breathed. "This is my not so proudest moment of self-recrimination, isn't it?" He looked down at Eve's upset blue eyes and rocked her lightly as he swayed from side to side. "Did Daddy upset you, Flutterwing? Do you want Daddy to kick Daddy's butt for making you cry?" He bounced her a little to make her giggle. "Because I'll do that for you, my little princess. Oh yes I most certainly will do that."

"You're baby-talking her," Nine spat incredulously. "You're using _baby_ talk with our daughter?"

Eleven shrugged. "She likes it, so why not? I'll give my kids anything their hearts desire, and Eve happens to enjoy me talking to her in … _baby_ talk."

Nine held out his hands. "Give her back to me," he growled. "Give me back my daughter. She's not an animal that you need to simplify your language to be understood. She's the child of a Time Lord, an intelligent species."

"And one you have no right to," Eleven charged. He kissed at Eve's head and continued to sway to calm her. "If you refuse to go back to London and ask her a second time to join us as her companion. Then you have no right at all to tell me how to raise my child."

"How did you know…?"

"I was here before, you damn fool," Eleven snapped back. "Unlike the rest of you lot, I don't have to force myself to forget because my actions really have no bearing on the path that tonight's events take…"

"Well, except for this one," Rose offered with a shrug.

He nodded. "Quite right," slid out of his mouth. "I suppose I am involved, then. That's cool."

Nine growled and held his arms out. "Give me my daughter you flop-headed git."

"Yeah," he drawled. "Not going to happen. But if you listen to your wife – and she _is_ your wife at this point in your timeline – then you'll go back to London and tell Rose that the TARDIS travels in time so that she'll take your hand and begin this journey of ours."

"You say that like that's the only reason I got into the TARDIS," Rose said with a frown.

Eleven's brows rose high. "It wasn't?"

"No," she huffed. "As soon as the TARDIS dematerialized I realised that I'd made a mistake – a huge mistake – by telling you that I didn't want to travel with you." She cupped her hand on his cheek and smiled into his dopey-puppy expression. "It felt like you tore out my heart when you left. You had me at your rematerialization, Doctor, not because the TARDIS travelled in time."

His voice fell to a whisper. "Really?"

"I promise," she vowed as she pressed her lips to his and engaged him in a languid and loving roll of her mouth against his.

Nine watched with a tic in his eye as his older incarnation and Rose came together in their kiss. He felt the draw of his own lips into a pout as though waiting for their turn to touch against Rose. His eyes fell low, to where their daughter lay nestled protectively between them…

…And suddenly there was nothing else in the entire universe that he wanted more than to hold his children in his arms and share a life with Rose.

"Tell me what I need to do," he asked quietly as Eleven and Rose separated. "What am I missing? What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing," Eleven answered with a shrug. "Unless you've already gone back a second time and opened your TARDIS door for her."

"I haven't."

"Then you're not missing anything," Rose offered with a smile and a swipe of her hair from her face. "All you need to do is head back to the same place and time that you left me and tell me that she travels in time as well as in space."

Nine frowned. "I don't have to ask a second time?"

Rose shook her head and grinned widely. "You don't have to say anything at all," she said with a laugh. "Unless you want to run your gob and make me think you're more brilliant than I already do. Then you just have to say that she travels in time."

"What did I do with you?"

"Told me that she travelled in time."

He drew up a hand and held her chin in between his thumb and finger. "Then I'll say it this time, too."

Nine leaned forward to softly press his mouth against Rose's. "Thank you, Rose Tyler."

"No, Doctor. Thank _you_."

He kissed her again and then gave a wink as he stepped back toward the TARDIS doors. "I'll see you soon, my precious girl. Until then…" He looked toward Eleven and then back to Rose. "Please don't let him talk baby talk to our daughter. It's undignified."

Eleven lifted his head and laughed. "You say that like you think we are."

He shrugged and stepped into the TARDIS, taking time only to look back at his older self. "It's worth a shot."

Eleven shook his head as he dropped his hand to hold onto Rose's hand.

"Will he get it right," Rose asked quietly.

Eleven nodded. "Yeah. He will." He swallowed and gently handed their daughter to her mother. "I was in his place once before. I remember what he went through and how much this whole thing hurt." He settled Eve against Rose's chest and stroked at her fluffy head. "Pain on all sides, this episode, I tell you."

Rose cradled her daughter in her arms and took Eleven's hand in his. "Are you okay?"

"I am now," he assured as he brought her hand to his mouth and lightly kissed it. "I wasn't when I was either of him, but now. Now I'm more than okay."

"Glad to hear it," Rose said with a smile. "Now. Home? Put Eve to bed and make love all night?"

Eleven's face briefly creased in want as he imagined doing just that. The expression fell, however, and he looked across the field to a lone TARDIS with a Time Lord on a pinstripe suit seated against her doors. Ten's arms were curled around his head, which was buried on his knees. Even from this distance it was clear that the stoic and distinguished Time Lord was anything but. His choking sobs could be heard across the pasture.

Eleven inhaled a breath and looked to his wife. "I think he needs a little comfort, Rose."

She nodded, but said nothing.

"You and Eve. Go to him. Let him know that you come home to him." He looked at his gurgling little girl and kissed the air toward her. "Give him hope, Rose."

"I know you've never denied me seeing your other incarnations," she said softly. "But you don't typically push me toward them."

"That's because I'm a jealous man," he answered with a shrug.

"Really?" she said facetiously. "I never would've guessed."

He nudged her with his shoulder. "Go to him, Rose. Please. Before I change my mind." He kissed her temple and then pressed a kiss to Eve's head. "I'll be waiting for you at home."

Rose watched him for a moment as he strode toward his TARDIS. "Doctor?"

He paused and turned back to her. "Yes?"

"Aryea's TARDIS. It already had the coords set for landing here." She tilted her head to the side. "I thought it was because our TARDIS was being generous and letting us help out."

He shook his head.

"It was you, wasn't it?"

He nodded. His eyes shifted to Ten, still slumped and sobbing desperately against his TARDIS. "Remember, Rose. I was here before."

"And was I?"

He nodded. "I love you, Rose." He indicated Ten with his head. "And so does he."


	55. Nuk Nuk

A/N: I never thought I'd finish this one ... sheesh ... took a bit and then a bit more...

This is fluff. That's what it is. Fluff. And I apologise for absolutely NOTHING, because I actually like this chapter. I do .. so there. I don't say that often, but I actually kind of do...

ONE CHAPTER TO GO!

As always, thanks for sticking with me, and thank you for your amazing comments! This has been quite the ride... hoo yeah!

~~oooOOOooo~~

Why did it hurt so damn much?

He was a Time Lord; an almighty being with superior biology, superior intelligence, and a superior ability to shove away any emotions to remain stoic and unreadable. He wasn't supposed to be so weak-willed as to fall apart and crumble into an undignified heap against his TARDIS.

Perhaps it was some residual throwback to his former human state that had dragged him down into this pit of defeat and despair. There was no other excuse for it. No wonder the Time Lords had long ago buried their emotions to become the unfeeling robots that watched over Time…

..It hurt so damn much!

Contracting around himself seemed to give slight respite to the agony. Trying to stand up straight and walk proved to be an impossibility. The wrenching pain in his gut and inside his hearts wouldn't allow it. All he could do was collapse up against the doors of his TARDIS, slide helplessly down the faded blue wood onto his butt in the dewy grass, and then fold down into himself.

The gulping sobs were an instinctually involuntary action, and the more he fought against it, the worse the pain became. His head, his throat and his eyes stung; and that searing agony quickly spread down into his chest and his belly. He brought his knees up to his chest in an attempt to hold the pain at bay, and wrapped his arms around his head.

How had he done it again? How had he let the two of them slip from his fingers … _Again_?

What had he done that was so horrific that he was going to have to lose them over and over and bloody-well over again?

…Destroying his own planet might have qualified, but hadn't he already suffered enough for that? Hadn't the universe already paid him back time and time again by breaking his hearts and his spirit in a repetitive cycle of love and loss and hello's not being able to be said before it came time for goodbye?

With a wailing cry he slammed his elbow back against the door of the TARDIS. He gave three hard and bruising strikes against the wood as an ancient curse in an equally ancient language thundered out from between his teeth.

Pain shot through his elbow at the strike and he lifted his head to inhale a hiss as he clutched at his stinging arm. He kept his head seated back on the TARDIS door for only a short moment as he hissed through the pain in his shoulder, and then slowly opened his eyes as he lowered his head back down with the intent to hang it over his knees.

Big blue eyes stopped him in place.

His breath hitched at the sight of a small female toddler that stood mere feet away from him. Through the part of his knees he watched as the little girl in the pink onesie and tu-tu tilted her head and carefully analysed him as she sucked slow pulls on her pacifier.

The Doctor dared not move a muscle as the slow pulls on the pacifier suddenly sped up to a rapid succession of noisy sucks as the child lumbered slowly forward on unsteady legs. She made it forward, close enough to be able to put her little hand on his pinstripe covered knee and used the swipe of her hand to snatch the pacifier from her mouth. She clutched it in her fingers, high above her head and let out a startled peep as stumbled onto her tulle-covered bottom.

Instinctively the Doctor leaned forward to catch her fall. "Ooh! Careful there, little Flutterwing," he warned gently with the offer of a supporting hand for her to hold onto. It was quickly swatted away, however, with a little grunt as she struggled to stand all by herself using her little fingers to clutch at his trouser leg to stabilise herself.

Once she was steady, Eve held her pacifier up in an offering to the Doctor. "Daddy, Nuk Nuk," she said with empathy in her eyes.

His top lip curled upward in question and his eyes widened. His voice was a quiet whisper when he was finally able to speak. "What?"

Eve staggered forward in between the part of his legs. She still held up her pacifier to him and her eyes were locked on his expression. So much so that she lost concentration on her stride and stumbled forward right onto his chest.

Rather than an embarrassed peep, Eve smiled widely as she stuck the soggy teat of her pacifier against the Doctor's lip. "Daddy, Nuk Nuk," she repeated with encouragement and a nod of her head.

Well. What could he do? This tiny little tu-tu wearing girl was calling him _Daddy_ and was offering him her _Nuk Nuk_. It was already pressed against his lip, so it would only take a shift of his mouth for him to take it.

So he did.

He parted his lips just enough that the teat was pushed into his mouth. He held it with his teeth and then closed his lips around it. The wetness of the back plate of the pacifier practically adhering his lips to it should have disgusted him, but it didn't. He barely even noticed it. The sparkle of happiness in the child's eyes and her smile made him ignore pretty much anything else.

Eve pressed her finger to her lip and breathed out a gentle sushing sound. "I'm here now," she cooed with a juvenile slur in her words. "Eve's here for her Daddy."

The Doctor kept hold of the teat of the pacifier in between his teeth and blinked down helplessly at her. He cleared his throat to try and speak, but was given another gentle shush. Eve clutched onto the lapel of his blazer and pulled herself up to a stand. She rose up onto her toes and pressed her wet little lips against his temple. At her contact he felt an immediate wash of brilliant warmth surge through him that had him exhale a shaking breath. When he then inhaled, he heard the soft tones of a long forgotten lullaby sung against his temple in broken Gallifreyan babble.

He didn't have the hearts to correct her as she stumbled over the syllables and sounds of his ancient language. In fact, he wanted her to keep singing it as she did. He wanted to learn _this_ version of the lullaby and sing it this way for the rest of time. He closed his eyes and closed his arms around her tiny body and just let her sing. It was the most beautiful rendition of the ancient song that he'd ever heard.

…Even if he could only understand one or two words in every line.

"Oh," a soft voice crooned emotionally from above them. "I think you've just made her whole year, Doctor."

The Doctor blinked and looked up to see Rose towering above the two of them. She held out her phone in front of her as she filmed the scene of the Doctor sucking on a pacifier while his tiny daughter sung a lullaby in his ear. He tried to speak her name around the teat of the pacifier, but was sure that it came out more as a babble than an articulated word.

Rose simply smiled and pocketed her phone into the pack pocket of her jeans. "It's always you calming her down," she breathed with a smile as she lowered herself to her knees at his side. "Now she has her turn to do the same to you."

"Daddy's sad," Eve advised her mother in a very matter-of-fact manner. "I make him better, yeah?" She pointed to his mouth. "Nuk Nuk." She poked at his temple. "Gall'frey song." She then nestled her nose into his cheek with enough effort to wriggle her entire body. She then planted a loud and wet smack of a kiss on his cheek that finished with a _mwaaah_. "And kisses!"

"Oh," Rose answered with a breathy chuckle. "Look at you being there for your Daddy."

Eve's eyes were wide and her expression hopeful as she wobbled in her stand and held the Doctor's face in her hands. She drew his attention to her with a pull of her hands and looked imploringly into his face. "Feel better now?"

His eyes swam with a fresh wash of tears and his jaw slackened. The hang of his jaw was enough that the pacifier was at threat of falling. Eve immediately let up a gasp and used both hands to hold it in place. "No, Daddy. Shhhh. Shhhhh. No cry. Don't cry." She swayed her body dramatically and started to sing her little song again.

The Doctor was held hopelessly in place.

"She's never seen you upset before," Rose said softly as she shuffled to sit against the Doctor's hip. "This is how you and Gal tend to cheer her up when she gets upset, so it's no surprise she's using the same tactic on you."

He couldn't speak, not with a pacifier being held in his mouth by two tiny little hands. He shifted his eyes toward Rose and offered her a defeated furrow in his brow. He then took her hand in his and wriggled his fingers so that his and hers were threaded together.

"I know you can't speak," she said with a chuckle. "Which must be absolutely killing you right now – oh he of the almighty gob."

He rolled his eyes, but smiled from behind the pacifier.

"Civilisations from across all time and space have sought the answer of how to shut the gob of the Time Lord Doctor." She winked at her daughter, who was singing and yawning at the same time. "Leave it to a thirteen month old little Time Tot to work it out."

His eyes shifted to the little girl to gaze upon her with eyes of utter adoration, and then slid back to look at Rose. She could read the question in his eyes and nestled against his side. Her hand wrapped around his arm as her fingers tightened inside his.

"I don't know if you remember meeting her when you were your Ninth self," she began softly. "But this is Eveblianarkytiorlungbarrowmas. Eve for short." She swallowed and nestled a little closer to him. "Currently she's our youngest. I'd like to say it'd remain that way, but you tend to get a little clucky every ten years or so and petition for us to have another, so she probably won't be the last of our brood."

His brow furrowed in question at that.

Rose chuckled. "And when I say _petition_ I mean it. You pit the kids up against me, you create powerpoint presentations and spreadsheets…" she caught an expression of disbelief from him and sighed. "Okay. Not to _that_ extreme. But you aren't above using the TARDIS and at least one of the kids to back up your request." Then she shrugged. "Not that it matters, really. No method of birth control stops your little Time Lord soldiers from doing their job. And let's not forget that it's the Lord and not the Lady that actually controls the heat cycle of the Lady anyway, so as soon as you're ready to go you make sure that I am too."

He managed a full toothy grin underneath the pacifier and waggled his brows at her.

"Bloody telepathic hocus pocus thing your species has."

The Doctor let out a happy sound from the very back of his throat and Eve gave a giggle. "Daddy all happy now," she sang proudly as she hooked her finger into the ring of the pacifier and tugged. "Eve's Nuk Nuk?"

The Doctor released the pacifier with a pop and gave the little girl a smile as she immediately popped it back into her own mouth. "Thank you for sharing your Nuk Nuk with me, Flutterwing."

"Welcome," she managed with a smile around her pacifier. She then turned and dropped her backside onto his leg and hid herself underneath his blazer.

He could feel the pull of her pacifier against his chest and waited for her to settle before he looked back toward Rose. "Just how many offspring do we have?" He tilted his head. "I'm going to guess that you are the future version of you and not the Rose who just left me for _Scarf_."

Rose ran her thumb along his chin to wipe it free of the moisture left from the pacifier. "I never left you for _Scarf_ ," she shot back firmly. "I was removed to Gallifrey to recover from the effects of Bad Wolf and…" She inhaled, swallowed and then shook her head. "As soon as I was able to, Gal and I came back to you." She leaned her temple on his shoulder. "And it was much longer for us than it was for you."

"You don't look a day older," he said with suspicion as he leaned his cheek down onto her head.

"I'm actually more than two centuries older." She felt him stiffen and breathed out a quiet shush. "Thirteen hundred and fifty years," she said in a clinical tone. "That's how much you, your other incarnations, and Gal gave me."

"Oh."

"I don't know if that was your intention, or even if you understood just what it was you were even doing, but you lads did."

"It was my _hope_ ," he answered her quickly. "My _intention_ , I suppose, to give you the years that I would otherwise have wasted without you. It was a hypothesis I had been thinking on. I didn't know it would actually work, though. Human biology given Time Lord years." He let out a breath. "It was risky."

"But the alternate was no life at all," she finished for him. "I wouldn't have survived it. Well. I nearly didn't even survive your offer of extra Time Lord years. If it wasn't for Leela and your Eighth self setting up something with the Hermit Monk up in the mountain behind Lungbarrow, then I wouldn't have." She was silent for a brief moment to let that sink in and then nestled a little closer against his side. "Brax. He was amazing, Doctor. Without his assistance in getting what Leela and K'anpo needed, then I would've died on Gallifrey."

"K'anpo Rimpoche," the Doctor recalled with a fond voice. "Brilliant man. I wish I could find a way to thank him."

"You already did," she said softly. "And you're right. He is quite brilliant. He told me some wonderful stories about you as a youngster and then terrified Gal with a couple of other tales."

"Vampire Swarms?"

"Vampire swarms," she repeated with a chuckle. "He had Gal worked up enough that your son insisted on dressing up to go hunt them." She felt his laugh more than heard it. "You, Brax, Leela and even K'anpo spent a night out on Mount Cadon camping and hunting vampires."

"And we left you all alone?"

"Nah," she drawled. "Andred stayed with me that night. Terrified he was, let me tell you."

"How did the hunt go? Did they see anything?"

"Of course not," she bit back with a laugh. "Although Gal saw a flubble and was scared to death of it."

"What?" He barked. "They're a delightful creature."

"Not when you're used to the cute and cuddly four-limbed _Earth_ version of it."

"The Earth version is nowhere near as efficiently designed as the Gallifreyan one."

"Well no of course not," Rose droned. "So inferior to Gallifreyan species these pathetic Earth creatures."

The Doctor smiled and released Rose's hand to open up the flap of his blazer to check on Eve. He smiled at her sleeping soundly against his chest. "How many?" he asked softly without taking his eyes off her.

"Including Gal, seven." She traced her fingertips down along his arm. "And counting."

He breathed that number with awe.

"Gal's still your only son," she continued. "Which he's completely fine with. He's a fiercely protective big brother and has gotten himself into more than one bout of trouble defending their honour." She caught his look. "As have you, Doctor. That should go without saying."

"Quite right," he muttered as he looked back down at his sleeping daughter. "Am I there for them, Rose? All of them?"

"Of course you are," she assured him. "Every day of their existence, from conception through to when they get their own TARDISes and find their own adventures. And even then, you're always just a hypercube and TARDIS materialization away from them." She cupped his cheek in her hand and drew his attention back to her. She waited until he blinked and refocused his gaze before she continued to speak. "Once we come back together, we're always together, Doctor. Always."

"Always?"

"Well, except for quick trips here and there, like this one." She looked down at their sleeping child and smiled as she stroked her fingertip across her forehead. "Eve won't let you out of her sight anyway. Such a little Daddy's girl. She has a meltdown if she thinks you're not within screaming distance of her."

Rose lifted her head to rest it against the TARDIS door. She rolled her head to look at him gazing down at the tiny little bundle in his arm. "Then again." She lifted her hand to set her hand against his cheek. With light urging she coaxed him to face her. "We all are."

He relaxed back against the TARDIS doors and lazily turned his head to face her. His voice was soft, almost a plea when he spoke. "You all are what, Rose?"

"Your girls," She answered tenderly. "Me, Allyea, Adiara, Tia, Avia, Ivy and Eve. We all love you so much."

His gaze dropped to her mouth a moment and he licked at his lip as he took a breath. "You're spoiling me, you know that, right?"

Her brow creased in puzzlement. "I'm _what_?"

"By telling me my future." He inched his face closer to hers. "You're not supposed to do that, Rose."

"I'm giving you hope," she argued on a whisper as her eyes dropped to his mouth. "By letting you know that your future is so much brighter than you think it is right now." She traced her fingertips along his jaw and smiled at his shudder to her touch. "Doctor, what's coming for you. It's more than just me and the kids. It's incredible."

"Having you, Gal, and the girls. What could be more incredible than that?" he questioned softly as he let his lips brush gently against hers and nuzzled his nose against hers.

"That's the part I'm not going to spoil for you, Doctor," she breathed on a note at least one octave higher than normal. Her fingers ceased stroking his jaw in favour of cupping it in her hand. Her fingers flexed against his skin and she tugged him toward her. "Some secrets need to be kept."

"I could just read your mind," the threatened softly.

"Mmmm," she hummed. "But you'd never do that." She sucked a quick kiss from his mouth and then bit at her lip as her brow tightened into a wince of raw need. "God, Doctor. I miss this you."

"Rose," he growled somewhat predaciously. "I miss you too."

Neither of them said anything further as they both moved and close the distance between them to collide against each other in a frenzied and messy kiss. The Doctor slid his free arm around her waist and snarled out a growl as he flexed his arm and pulled her up to straddle his thigh. His mouth clumsily sought out hers as she broke to shift position, and she messily chased him when he pulled back to inhale a breath.

Rose desperately slid higher up his thigh and pressed her hands against the door at the back of his head. She rocked herself against his thigh and bit hard at his bottom lip, only to release it after a firm suck and then tug of her lips when his breath hitched in hard.

He held her tight and still against him and panted hotly against her mouth. "Let's get Eve inside the TARDIS. Martha and Romana can look after her."

"Why," she panted inside a light whine. "Why would they need to watch her?"

"So I can make love to you," he answered firmly. "So I can be reminded and in turn remind you just how unbelievable we are together. This me. This you. Us."

She winced and cleared her throat. "Doctor…"

"You and me," he continued. "The Doctor … Well. No not just _the_ Doctor. Ten and Rose. As it should be." He dropped his lips to her neck and drew back a firm suckle of her skin.

She swallowed hard through her panted breaths and then bit at her lip as she shook her head and moved to back off his thigh. "Doctor. Stop. We can't."

He released her neck with a pop and lifted his head to gaze up at her. His brow was creased in confusion. "Rose?"

She shook her head and slid off his thigh. She uncomfortably adjusted her jeans and rubbed her hand on the back of her neck. "No. This isn't right."

"Why not?" he queried with bewilderment. "We've done this before. You've never denied me when I've needed you."

"But…"

"And Rose," he continued desperately. "I've never needed you any more than I do right now." His eyes chased after hers as she winced and tried to look everywhere but at him. "I'm prepared to beg," he admitted unashamedly. "I need you, Rose. I need my wife."

She cupped his cheeks in her hands and pressed her forehead against his. "I know, Doctor."

"I can't take this anymore," he pleaded wetly as the back of his throat began to ache again. "I can't do another goodbye."

"Which is exactly why we can't make love right now, Doctor," she said gently. "You're in the wrong place right now. It wouldn't be right – not for either of us – and I won't take advantage of you like that no matter how much I want to."

"Please…?"

"I'll be home soon," she vowed fiercely. "So soon, Doctor. Me and Gal."

"How long?"

"One day, two?" She answered unsurely. "Three, maybe. I really don't know the actual timeline. You'd never tell me. But I know it's less than a week."

"If I wouldn't tell you, how did you know that?" he whispered into her mouth that hovered too dangerously close to his right now.

"Because the universe was still intact," she said with a smile. "I think any longer than a few days and you might have destroyed a civilization or two."

He smiled, albeit a weak one. "I'm usually the one that saves them, Rose."

Rose brushed her lips against his in a gentle and chase kiss. "We're coming home, Doctor. I promise you." She sighed hard. "Just wait for us, yeah?"

He gave her a nod of his head and continued to slowly nod his head as his mouth once again sought out hers. He gave a tentative press of his mouth against hers, but quickly deepened it into a passionate kiss that was an exquisite roll of jaw with hers.

Rose gave the slightest whimper of protest, but swiftly fell into rhythm with him. She was careful to keep her distance otherwise, but wasn't going to pull away from his completely.

"C'mon Rose," he breathed in between kisses. "Let me make love to you. It's been so long."

Rose was a half second away from caving to his request when she felt it. Little toes attached to little feet at the end of very strong little legs that were thrust out and pushing against her belly. She shifted back from the Doctor and looked down into a pair of angry blue eyes peeking out from around a curtain of brown and blue pinstripes.

"Uh-oh," Rose sang in warning. She then bit at both lips to lock them closed and lifted her eyes to the Doctor.

" _My_ Daddy," Eve declared from within the Doctor's blazer. Her little finger jutted a territorial point toward her mother and she narrowed her eyes. "Not yours. _Mine_."

Rose held up both hands and motioned as though she was ready to back off completely. Her teeth still bit at her lip in an attempt to bite away a smile.

The Doctor merely looked down in surprise as the little girl quickly wriggled and grunted and then shifted to stand on her father's thigh. Her finger still pointed an accusation toward Rose as her other arm thread up over the Doctor's shoulder. "Mine," she reiterated sternly.

"Oh," Rose managed after releasing her lips from the bite of her teeth. "Yes. Eve. All yours."

That seemed to make the young girl happy and she ceased pointing at her mother to curl her arm around her father's neck. She buried her face into his cheek and then giggled contentedly as she pulled back to look at him with sheer adoration. "I love you Daddy."

"And I love you, Flutterwing," he admitted with a tender nuzzle of his nose into her cheek. He grinned at her little squeaking giggle and bounce in her knees. "But I also love your Mummy, too." He dipped his head to look into her eyes. "You know that, yeah? That Daddy loves Mummy. Oh. Oh so very much."

Eve's eyes widened and she bit at her lips as she nodded frantically.

"If I didn't love Mummy, then you wouldn't be with us, would you? You'd have a different Mum and Dad."

"Subscribing to the theory of reincarnation there, Doctor?"

He flashed her a look, and a smile. "Go with me on this, Rose. Please."

Eve looked horrified. "I don't want another mum and Dad," she whined.

"Then you have to let Mummy and Daddy kiss and cuddle," he said with a light frown and a pout in his lower lip. "Because if we can't be in love, then…"

"Oh that's terrible, Doctor," Rose groaned into her hand.

His mouth hung open as he waited for it to sink in to little Eve. His eyes were wide and encouraging and his head bobbed just slightly. "Well, Eve?"

Eve looked panicked and waved her hand to her mother in and urgent request to come closer. When Rose moved into a distance to be reached, Eve clawed at her shirt collar and pulled her in toward the Doctor.

"Kiss," she demanded. She then puckered up her little lips and made sucking noises to demonstrate.

The Doctor looked at his daughter and then looked to Rose. He gave a grin and a shrug. "Can't argue with that, now, can we?"

"I guess not," she answered with a smile as she leaned forward and pressed her mouth against his. It was nothing more than a press of lips against lips, but it was enough for Rose and the Doctor for now – especially when a third little pair of lips came in from the side to join in.

Rose and the Doctor separated with a laugh.

"On that delightful note," Rose sang as she drew herself to a stand. "We should be off. I do have a teenager and a toddler that need to be fed, and an adult Time Lord who needs some smooching and stroking after his adventure here today."

The Doctor held tightly to little Eve as he also pulled to a stand. He moved her to his hip and juggled her lightly for comfort. "Please don't tell me that," he droned. "Not when I was shot down so viciously."

Rose held out her hands for her child. Thankfully, Eve came without argument. "You weren't shot down viciously," she corrected. "You were merely put in a holding pattern until your _true_ wife and lover come home to you."

"Technically," he said with a smirk. " _You_ were the one I married."

"Technically _she's_ the one who mothered your son and will in turn bear you an entire tribe of little time tots."

"True." He let out a sigh and thrust his hands deep inside his trouser pockets. "So. A couple of days, a few max?"

Rose nodded. "About that."

He bit at his lip and nodded. "I guess I can wait a few days." His eyes flicked back to hers. "Any longer than that, though…"

Rose rolled onto her toes and kissed the side of his mouth. She was slow to draw back from him. "We'll let the universe create its own interpretation of your threat, then."

"It's more terrifying that way," he said with a wink. He let out a breath and leaned forward a little as he rocked back on his converse. "Guess I'd better let you go, then. See to my kids, make love to older me…."

Rose jostled Eve on her hip and looked down at her with a smile before looking back to the Doctor. "I love you, Doctor. This you, grumpy you, gangly you, whichever you. I love you."

He nodded. "I know, Rose."

"Don't ever forget that, yeah?"

He took his hand from his trouser pocket and pressed it against the TARDIS door. He sighed as the door gave way to allow him to enter. "As long as you never forget that I love you, too, Rose."

"Never will," she vowed with a smile as she turned and began to walk away.

He nodded then lifted his head as she disappeared into the darkness. "See you soon, then."

"Very soon, Doctor."


	56. Fixing What's Broken

A/N: Looks like I lied... Had to break this last chapter up, so there may be one or two left. I remembered I have stuff to wrap up here before I can totally say it's done...

Hope that's okay ...

Thanks to all of you for your wonderful comments! I love that you're enjoying this. I hope you enjoy this chapter, too. I do... :)

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor enjoyed puzzles. He really did. Anything that could exercise his big old Time Lord brain and didn't involve him having an entire civilisation's fate held by a fine thread in order to do so was just brilliant.

…And anything to wile away the time and take his mind off the lengthening absence of his wife and child was brilliant, too. Although his current _puzzle_ wasn't without a connection to the smallest of the pair. He wasn't entirely sure if that was a good or bad thing – but it certainly made him that much more focused on the problem at hand. He had to get this _just right_ , with no cheating and no shortcuts.

Although Romana was quite sure that a shortcut was in order as she leaned on the other side of the TARDIS console to him and watched with a narrowed gaze.

"You do know that the TARDIS can aid you in repairing that mug, don't you?"

The Doctor kept his eyes focused on the pair of tweezers in his hand through a lighted magnifying glass that hovered over his project as he carefully set another piece in its place.

"I'm impressed, Romana," he purred with a smirk as he let the glue take hold of the fragment and released the hold of the tweezers.

"How are you impressed?" she asked with a purr equal to his.

He looked over the edge of his magnifying glass at another shard and carefully tweezed it. He moved it underneath the magnifier and turned it about in the light. "It took you a rather impressive five hours of staring and sighing and grunting and tapping your foot to finally work yourself up enough to actually say something."

"Five hours?" she said with an incredulous grunt. "Try two days, Doctor."

He let out a distracted sound, something that sounded like a surprised _huh_ , and tweezed the piece into place on the half completed mug repair. "It's been _that_ long? I never would've thought it…"

"You're a Time Lord," she growled with frustration. "If you have not felt every second of those two days then you need to have your title immediately revoked."

He slammed the tweezers down on the table with a slap of his hand. "I'm a Time Lord waiting for the return of my mate and child," he snarled with a glare over the rims of his glasses. "I've felt every single minute since they left. I can trace it to the very nanosecond how long we've been separated this time around." He let out a long and loud breath. "I don't need you to remind me of it."

Not surprisingly, Romana didn't flinch at his sudden change in demeanour. She merely swept her hair over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. "I think it would be a good idea for you to cease this mindless task that you've set yourself on, and wile away these hours in a more productive manner." She dropped herself lower over the console as his eyes darkened and his jaw fell open to speak. "Engage yourself in activities more appropriate for a Lord of Time than…" She waved her hand at it. "Than _that_."

The Doctor kept his eyes on hers as he raised his half-repaired mug. "Tell me, Romana. Tell me what is so mindless about repairing this?"

"The TARDIS," she shot back, "can repair that item in a few moments."

"I know," he growled in response. "She's already made three of them and has relentlessly taunted me with her _brilliance_ in pottery every time I head into the galley to make myself a cup of tea." His eyes raised to glare toward the rotor column. "And I will thank you to please replace the mugs that you've hidden from me. I refuse to drink from a cheap replica."

Romana's eyes dropped to a paper cup half-filled with tea and sporting a brown stain at the lip where he'd taken his mouthfuls of the beverage. "That would explain why you've taken to using disposables."

He held up his half completed mug and pointed at the circular symbol that was covered in cracks and flecked paint. " _My Father who is in my hearts_ ," he translated quickly."

"I know what it says," she shot back. "I was the one who taught him that phrase."

"At _his_ request," he added. "Gal had you write this and then repeatedly practiced it so that he would paint it flawlessly on this."

"He did," she answered softly.

His voice softened. "Then why wouldn't I take the same care that he did in making sure that this incredible gift he made me is put back together by _my_ hand?" He set it back down underneath the magnifying glass and ran his fingers along the yellow painted text. "I don't want a cheap knock-off of this. I want the original."

"I understand," she acquiesced softly.

"It took him two days to make this, Romana. It was my fault it got broken." He adjusted the seat of his glasses on his nose and wriggled in his seat to get back to task. "If it took him two days to make it. I can certainly spend that much time and more repairing it."

"You'll never be able to drink from it," she advised him softly.

"That doesn't matter," he answered back quietly. "It was a gift to me from my son. I want it back in one piece." He frowned a grimace of sadness. "Well. As much in one piece as I can make it – which is definitely a task…"

"Doctor…"

He inhaled sharply through a sniff and quickly composed himself. "But not one too great for this old Time Lord. Clever me can put this thing back together. Puzzles. Love them." He picked up his tweezers and squinted down through the magnifying glass. "Did I ever tell you about the time that I was on Padroavis? The TARDIS landed us in the middle of a civil war between the Lesmones and the Xaclites. They are rival royal chapters in the northern hemisphere of the planet. Respectful families, the both of them, but they got into a rather heated disagreement over the illicit coupling of a Prince from Lesmone and a servant girl of Xaclite." He lifted his eyes as he sensed her walking toward him around the console. His voice croaked a little, which required him to clear it with a grunt, and he looked back down to his task. "There really is no class differentiation in the province of Xaclite. Servants are not viewed any lower than any member of the royal family. A role is a role, really. The Lesmones, however. Well, they view classes like they do here on Earth. Your station is your class and therefore there are many tiers to their social structure." He huffed with a roll of his shoulder when Romana appeared at his side. "Anyway. The Lesmones were upset that their prince had lowered himself to not only fall in love with a girl rival province, but a lowly servant girl. The Xaclites took great offence to it and low and behold – an all-out war began."

"Kind of like a Lord of Time falling in love with a shop girl from Earth."

His breath hitched a moment. He didn't move his head to look at her, but he shifted his eyes to look at her belly – the only part his position would allow him to see. "Rose isn't _just_ a _shop girl_ ," he hissed out. "She's the savior of a Time Lord."

"She's also the one who defeated him," she offered in challenge along a whisper.

This time his head shot up and he glared into her eyes. "It's a defeat I'm happy to surrender to."

"Are you sure?"

His eyes pinched just slightly at her question. "I don't understand why you're questioning that, Romana," he answered cautiously. "I've never been more sure of anything in my entire 900-years of existence."

"If they don't return, Doctor. If Brax and your fourth self are unable to save her…"

"They can and they will," be spat back harshly. "I know they will."

"If they don't," she pushed. "Then what will you do?"

He sniffed and looked back down at the console. He tipped one shoulder nonchalantly. "I've still got the TARDIS."

"Same old life?"

"Yes."

"I really would advise against it," she warned firmly. "A Time Lord that loses his Bonded Mate also loses his mind…"

Martha's voice laughed in from the doorway of the console room. "You say that like he hasn't already lost it."

Romana shot her a glare. "I'm being serious, Martha. A bonded Time Lord losing his mate to death does not recover from it with his mind intact." She snorted out a breath and drew in a noisy inhale. "And if the Doctor loses Rose then his best option is to return to Gallifrey and seek the appropriate counselling and support, not continue to gallivant across time and space wreaking havoc."

The Doctor looked like he wanted to retort, but was silenced rather quickly by Martha raising a finger to him and then swishing it through the air toward Romana. "One. Don't be so bloody morbid. If I know anything about Rose Tyler, it's that she doesn't give up easy. She will definitely come back to him – even if it's in zombie form."

"In _what_ form?" the Doctor barked incredulously.

"And Two," Martha continued. "A return to Gallifrey is most definitely off his list of options."

"Martha…" A breath of warning.

Her finger flicked to silence him. "You just sit there and be quiet, Doctor." Her finger shifted back toward the Time Lady. "He left that planet for a reason, Romana. If you think losing Rose'd warp his mind, then sending him back to Gallifrey in a straight jacket would make him even worse." Her voice softened and she let her hand drop back to her side. "I'll be here for him. No matter what. He's my best friend and I'll make sure that if it comes to _that_ … that he has someone to get him through it."

"Is that a sacrifice you're prepared to make?" Romana queried with a tilt of curious question in her head. "He will never be able to fall in love again – not even with a woman who would give up everything for him."

Martha shrugged. "He's my best friend," she reaffirmed darkly.

"Who you love."

"Yes I do," she shot back with a slight chirp in her tone. "I love him to bits." She looked back to him, where the Doctor squirmed with slight discomfort in his seat at the revelation. "And in his own way, the Doctor loves me too."

"Just not the way you need him to."

Martha smiled and shook her head. "I don't _need_ him to love me anymore than he does. It'd be nice to have more, but really, that would make me second best – and who wants _that_?"

"You both know that I'm sitting right here," the Doctor muttered in a hoarse breath.

"Perfectly aware of that," Martha sang. She tugged at Romana's sleeve. "And we also know why it is that you're sitting there, so come on Romanadvoratrelundar, let's give this old man his space and head outside. The new matron is arriving at Farrington shortly. I'd like to make sure she isn't another alien before I allow them to let her loose on the kids."

"You are able to pronounce my name," Romana mused with a smile.

"I'm training to be a medical _doctor_ ," she answered with a chuckle. "You should _see_ the names and terminology I have to know how to pronounce. Your name is a piece of cake by comparison."

Intrigued, Romana allowed herself to be tugged out of the room by Martha. "The phrase _Piece of Cake_. Explain to me how did that came to pass?"

Martha let a brow rise as she pulled open the TARDIS door. "Haven't we already had this discussion?"

"I don't believe so."

The Doctor watched the two ladies leave the ship and waited until the door had clicked closed behind them to shake his head with a smile and return to his task. His smile fell as he noticed his hand begin to shake as he tried to set in a new shard to his broken mug.

"Come home to me," he whispered to himself with a break in his breath. "Please. I need you."

He ignored the warm trickle that plopped onto his cheek from the corner of his eye. He didn't wipe at it as it lazily rolled down over his cheek and chin to finally plop onto the glass magnifier. He closed his eyes and inhaled a wet sniff through his nose, only to exhale it as a shaking breath through his mouth. He removed his glasses and pressed the pads of his fingers against his eyes and fought every part of him that suggested he was dangerously teetering on the edge of crying again.

He heard a key slide into the door lock and quickly sniffed an inhale so abrupt and sharp that it lifted his top lip up off the pout of his lower lip. He swiped hard at his eyes, slid on his glasses and went immediately back to his task.

The was forced joviality in his voice when he spoke. "Well, I have to say that was quick. I figured that the two of you wouldn't be back for at least a couple of hours."

There was a small shift of breath, a small sound of surprise, and then the gentle footfall of small feet along the grating. "Well, then. I'll have to tell Dad that he got us here earlier than he thought he did. Fought the TARDIS, you did – younger you of course – to get us back here as early as you could."

The Doctor's head snapped up quickly from his task and he looked to the bottom of the ramp with wide eyes. "Gal…?"

Gallifrey faked a nonchalant smirk, and thumbed over his shoulder. "But if you want us to come back later, then I could always tell dad that we can take another quick trip in auntie TARDIS." He thrust his right hand into the pocket of his crimson trousers and shrugged. "I'm pretty sure he'll be all for it. Can't guarantee he'll stick the timing of our landing just right though. He's a bit of a mess right now saying G'Bye to mum, and Auntie TARDIS is being all moody and unreasonable. Pair those two up right now, and we probably won't make it back until sometime in your final regeneration."

The grin that broke out on the Doctor's face threatened to slice through his face to cut the top of his head clean off.

Gallifrey kept his hand firmly in his pocket and tilted slightly to one side as he lifted his other arm, at the end of which was another hand-made mug hanging off his fingers. "Look! Made you a present. Nd don't break…"

Gallifrey let up a startled yelp and then a squeal of excitement as he was suddenly engulfed by pinstripes and hair gel and lifted off the ground. He was spun in a full circle so quickly that his legs splayed out behind him, but that was nowhere near as awesome as the way that his name was practically yelled in his ear in a voice full of thrill and relief. He barely even noticed as the handle of the mug began to slip from his fingers as his father held him high off the ground swung him from side to side. By the time he did notice, however, the mug had tumbled from his fingers, bounced off his hip and then crashed down to the grating at the Doctor's feet…

…and immediately shattered.

Gallifrey let out a horrified yelp and struggled from the Doctor's hold. He scrambled to his knees toward the chunks of pottery on the grating and whimpered when he picked up the handle, which was the only part of the mug still intact.

"It broke," he muttered in disappointment.

The Doctor fell into a crouch at Gallifrey's side and let out a painful sound of apology. "Gal. Oh no. I am so sorry."

"It took me longer, this one," he whined softly. "I made it more special because I added mum's and my names in Gallifreyan on it." He looked up sadly to the Doctor. "Took me ages to learn how to write it properly, and uncle Brax isn't really a patient teacher, you know."

The Doctor hooked his hand around the back of Gallifrey's head and pulled him close so that their foreheads touched together lightly. "I'm so sorry, Gal. I'm so, so, sorry."

Gallifrey let out a long sigh and shifted his eyes upward to look into the apologetic gaze of his father. "It's okay, Dad."

"We can fix it, son. You and me," he promised with a broad smile. He snapped his head away from Gallifrey's forehead and shot up to a stand. He dropped his hand to assist the young boy to his feet. "We can do it as a project. Father and Son, rebuilding the mug."

One of his brows dropped and the other lifted high as Gallifrey used his father's hand as leverage to stand. "A project Dad?" he asked blandly.

"Indeed-o-mundo," the Doctor called back with a smirk that quickly fell into a look of disgust. "Forget that I said that. Horrible word-mash, that. Never using it again." He then switched to a grin and tugged Gallifrey toward the console. "I've already been working on repairing the other one."

Gallifrey's brows shot high to see the makeshift work desk that the Doctor had created on the TARDIS console and the half-repaired mug that sat under a yellow light. "Oh."

The Doctor pressed his hands into the edge of the console and pursed his lips as he looked at the haphazardly put together item. He didn't remember it looking quite so … _rustic_ … when he was originally working on it, and therefore rubbed at the back of his neck as he looked at it with a single brow arched high. "Well. It might not have the same sleek grandeur of the original design, but painted pottery is rather difficult to seamlessly put back together. Though…" he scratched at his sideburn and widened his eyes in a manner to suggest that the task ahead was great. "Give me a century or two and I might be able to scrap together enough of the tinier pieces to make it work."

Gallifrey grinned a tight grin that squinted his eyes, and then threw his arms around the Doctor's waist. He squeaked a sound of excitement as he hugged him tightly. "You're the best dad, ever. You know that?"

"Well, I don't know about that," he argued softly with his eyes still on the mess. "I've been directly responsible for the destruction of two amazing gifts that you took so much time and effort to make me. I think that ranks me somewhere in the lower spectrum of what makes a good dad." He winced. "No, lower than that. The Sub-level section of that list."

Gallifrey kept his arms around the Doctor's waist, but looked up to him with eyes twinkling. "Are you kidding me?" he barked happily. "You could've had auntie TARDIS fix that up in no time flat. He looked back to the grating, where his mug now sat – fully and seamlessly repaired – on the grating below the ramp. He then grinned back up at his father. "But you didn't. You decided to try and do it yourself and, oh, that must've taken you forever to do!"

The Doctor aimed for a nonchalant shrug, but couldn't stop the happy sound that tickled in the back of his throat and giggled through his nose. "What can I say? I like puzzles."

Gallifrey gave a laugh. "Yeah, and this is like one of those million piece ones!" He grinned a sparkle-eyed smile at his father. "Do you think we could work on this one together, then? As the artist who created it, I think I have a pretty good eye for what bit goes where."

"That sounds like a brilliant idea." The Doctor scruffed at Gallifrey's hair and gave a chuckle as the young boy practically purred and leaned his head into his father's belly. "So, my little flubble. Where's your mum, then?"

Gallifrey groaned and stepped back from the Doctor. "Okay. Don't call me Flubble anymore."

The Doctor was aghast at that. "No? Why in Rassilon not?"

Gallifrey pointed a finger of accusation at him and glared with narrowed eyes. "I saw one of those things, and I have to tell you, Dad. Ew. Just ew and …" He made the sound of a shudder. "Creepiest looking thing I've ever seen."

"Oh don't be like that," the Doctor retorted with a shake in his head. "A Flubble is a majestic creature – why I had one as a pet when I was in the academy. She was a female, and very adorable. I kept her under my bed. I called her Opiathinlestro." He grinned. "Oh I miss her."

Gallifrey lifted a brow, but smiled conspiratorially. "I thought you couldn't have pets at the academy."

"Which is why I hid her under my bed," he threw back with an indignant sniff.

"I can see," Gallifrey began with cheeky mirth. "That I'm going to be able to get away with quite a bit where you're concerned."

The Doctor's face lengthened in surprise. "How'd you come up with that. You'll get away with no sneaky shenanigans with me, young Flubble." He frowned. "Shenanigans. Not quite sure how I feel about that one." He rolled the word around on his tongue to try it out.

"Well," Gallifrey said with a roll in his eye and a purse in his lip that was far too like his mother when she was being cheeky. "You can hardly reprimand me for doing what you've gone ahead and done already, can you?" His eyes were still wide and his lips still pursed in their teasing state. "Pets at the Academy, scuffles in the playground…"

"There was no _playground_ at the academy, thank you." The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I don't know who told you that."

Gallifrey leaned forward and lessened his voice to a whisper. "I was on Gallifrey for six months. Seven if you count your wedding to mum." He nodded when the Doctor gave him a look of horror. "Oh. I've heard some stories about the little terror that consistently evaded his tutor, got into trouble – and even expelled from the academy…" He grinned as the Doctor dropped his forehead into his palm. "Oh, and how cool is it that you were in a band?"

The Doctor winced and groaned. "Omega kill me…"

"Tell me, Dad," Gallifrey continued with a tease as he motioned fluffing up long hair. "Did you wear your hair long and put on eyeliner and mascara?"

The Doctor playfully narrowed his eyes at the child. "Did Brax tell you that? Did that conniving little woprat share nonsense stories about me in my absence to make himself look better than me?"

Gallifrey was close to hysterics and shook his head. "No. _You_ told me." He chuckled. "Oh and you gave us an outstanding rendition of Stairway to Heaven on the Perigosto. Mum reckons we have to get you soused more often, oh you and uncle Brax – a riot!"

The Doctor wore a smile and a hung head. Slowly he lifted his head and winked at the lad. "So. Where's your mother, then?" He let out a longing breath. "I _really_ need to see her."

Braxiatel's voice thundered in from the doorway of the TARDIS. "Rose is currently bidding your Fourth self adieu." He strode confidently into the TARDIS and wasn't shy in showing his disapproval in the nakedness of the brilliant time machine. "Well. I'd like to say that I like what you've done with the place, but honestly, Thete. She looks like she needs some tender love and care."

The Doctor's entire expression fell as he laid eyes on his brother – a man he long thought dead. "Brax," he breathed sadly.

Braxietel looked at the Doctor initially with confusion, but that expression fell to understanding. "Ahh. Yes. Of course. I must be akin to a ghost to you, mustn't I?" He waved off the look of horror from the Doctor. "I was in your wife's mind," he said flatly. "I saw what she didn't want me to see. Really. You should coach her on effective shielding techniques."

The Doctor swallowed. "I will." He winced a painful grimace. "How much did you see?"

"A glimpse," Bradxiatel answered. "Enough to know the outcome – not enough to know how the final act came to pass. I suppose the _Time War_ isn't a topic of discussion between the two of you."

The Doctor shook his head.

Briaxiatel looked down toward Gallifrey and gave him a smile as he leaned down to straighten the lad's tunic. "How about you go and say your farewells to your father. Uncle Brax and your father need to talk."

"Okay," he chirped in response. He twisted to face the Doctor and gave him a smile. "Good to see you again, Dad. Be back soon and you and me can work on that mug, yeah?"

"Definitely yes," the Doctor answered with a forced smile. He watched Gallifrey jog to the doorway and then snatched his attention to his brother. "I'm not sharing it with you, Brax, so don't ask. What happens in the war happens."

"I know," Braxiatel said with a nod. "You'd be breaking the laws of Council if you told me anything."

"Then what could you possibly want to talk about?"

Braxiatel petted the console a moment and then strode past the Doctor toward the main corridor. He flicked his fingers over his shoulder in an order for the Doctor to follow him. "Come with me, Thete."

The Doctor fell in stride beside him. "Where are we going?"

"I never did give you a wedding gift, did I?"


	57. Saving the Universe

A/N: This chapter is not my fault. Nope. I blame Amber for this because she whispered in my ear via PM and suggested that this would be really awesome...

And you know what? She was right! I like this because I can completely ignore anything Moffatt ever wrote and still have my ... oh ... You'll know what when this chapter is over.

Amber, thanks. I don't know that it came out anywhere near what you had wanted it to be... If not and you think I blew apart what you had suggested, then just know that you completely inspired this.

**psst** and it gives way to family adventures ya know ...

The next is definitely the last chapter. I think I've wrapped it all up now. I certainly hope you like it. I really really hope you like it. This might upset a few people, and I apologise if it does. I just like this idea much more...

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor followed a half pace behind his brother as Braxiatel led them down along a vast corridor of the TARDIS. He really didn't take all that much notice of where he has being led. Instead, he chose to analyse the proud gait of his brother and focus on the set of his shoulders as he followed.

He never thought he'd ever see his brother again, and he probably wouldn't again after this meeting, so he wanted to make sure that he took in as much of his appearance as possible so that he'd never have the image fade from his memories.

Braxiatel could feel the stare of the Doctor, and could sense the sadness across their own familial bond. He didn't slow his walk, but he turned his head on his neck to speak over his shoulder at him.

"Just how long has it been, Thete?"

"There are several answers to _that_ question, Brax," he responded shortly. "You might want to be a little more specific."

Braxiatel stopped walking and lifted his head as he inhaled a deep breath. He held that breath a moment and then exhaled as he turned to face the Doctor. "How long since we've seen each other?"

"I'm currently in my Eleventh incarnation," the Doctor answered carefully. "I was in my Ninth when I saw you last." He swallowed thickly. "During the war."

"And judging by your current demeanour, I'll suggest that our last meeting wasn't entirely pleasant."

The Doctor thrust his hands deep inside his trouser pockets and slouched lightly as he looked off to the side. "Well. It wasn't entirely _unpleasant_ , but it wasn't a particularly happy meeting."

"And why's that, then?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Can we please not get into it, Brax? I really don't want to discuss that whole incarnation, thank you." He let out a breath. "I don't even count it as an official one, if I'm to be honest with you."

Braxiatel nodded. "So with that revelation, I am to refer to you as your _Tenth_ incarnation, then?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Refer to me with whatever name you want. It's not like you've ever actually offered me a choice before – I speak of you calling me _Thete_ , for example. A name I long since abandoned." His eyes lifted to actually look at where they were stopped. "Just where are we, exactly?"

"This is _your_ ship," Braxiatel remarked with amusement. "And you don't know this section of it?"

"In my defence, this old girl is pretty big." He cleared his throat, winced a little as he swallowed, and then pursed his lips. "I'm sure there's more than one section of her that I haven't seen yet." He chuckled lightly. "Actually, I know for a fact I haven't seen at least ninety percent of what she's got hidden back here."

Braxiatel's eyes flared for a moment with amusement. He used his hand to point down the corridor toward a door at the very end of it. "Well, then. Let's give you a glimpse into another two or so percent, shall we?"

"Point-Oh-five might be a more accurate percentile," the Doctor challenged with a look toward his brother. "Especially if your intention is for us to visit only one room. She has hundreds of them."

Braxiatel pressed his hands against a innocuous looking steel door. "But this room is quite likely her most important."

The Doctor thumbed over his shoulder. "Eye of Harmony is that way. There's nothing more important than that." He paused in thought. "Well. There might be one or two others with equal importance, but nothing you could show me now would trump any of them."

Braxiatel let one side of his lip curl into a smirk. His voice almost sang along a haunting note as he asked: "Is that what you think?"

The Doctor grunted as he let his eyes shift off to the side and lifted a lip in annoyance. "I hate it when you pull that rubbish on me, Brax. We aren't loomlings searching Lungbarrow for our nameday gifts. We're two fully grown Time Lords."

"Says the one described by his wife as an adorable bouncy little puppy with the ancient pains of the universe in his eyes, but youthful jubilance in his heart."

The Doctor couldn't help but smile at that. "She said that about me? Really?"

"And her case is most definitely rested," he droned sardonically with a roll of his eyes. "Of course, Rose wasn't quite so poetic…"

"She doesn't tend to be," the Doctor interrupted with a grin. "It's one of her most endearing qualities. She doesn't waste time on waxing poetic like the pompous Lords of Time of council."

"Present company included, I've no doubt."

"You are _clever_ aren't you," the Doctor chirped back with enough condescension to make his bother slump in annoyance. "Oh I can see why you finished at the top of your academy classes."

"Is this where I fire back that your entire existence proves to me why you finished dead last?"

"Deliberately," the Doctor shot back quickly. "That one-point-from-failure was a conscious decision made to prevent Quences pushing me to become Lord Cardinal." He shook himself in a shudder. "I have no desire, thank you, to join the council and end up as stuffy and boring as that lot."

"I see."

He pulled up one side of his face with guilt. "No offence."

"None taken."

Braxiatel pushed at the door and it gave way with a whining creak and scraping of metal on metal as it dragged along the floor. He waved his hand in the air in front of his face and blew through the dust. "Well. A good couple of centuries or so since this room has been opened, I see."

The Doctor coughed into his fist as he nodded. He looked to his brother with a squint in his eyes. "You think?"

"I _know_ ," Braxiatel corrected quickly. "I put a lock on this wing of the TARDIS when you were in your Eight incarnation. The TARDIS was instructed not to let you anywhere near this part of her until the time was right."

The Doctor snorted a petulant exhale through his nose. " _My_ ship," he snarled. "You can't stop me from going anywhere I damn well want to go."

Braxiatel rolled his eyes to the ceiling of the room and exhaled a long suffering sigh through his mouth. "Rassilon give me strength not to put him into regeneration."

The Doctor snorted again.

"Forever a brat, aren't you, Thete?" Braxiatel muttered with a huff.

The Doctor smirked a devious grin and looked through his brows at his brother. "You have no idea…"

Braxiatel's brows dropped in disbelief and he bellowed out a laugh at his brother. "Oh by the grace of Arcadia. I can't believe I am leaving the fate of our civilisation in _your_ hands."

The Doctor sobered immediately at that. His head turned slightly to one side so that he could give a sideways glance of worried question. "What did you just say?"

Braxiatel lifted his hand above his head and snapped his fingers toward light fixture above his head. Immediately several lights spread across the ceiling flashed to life with a steady hum of ancient ballasts in need of a change.

He dropped his hand to sweep it in front of him in presentation of a long slab of mottled grey stone ended by two tall and towering pillars carved from the same stone, but bearing small blinking lights along its length.

The Doctor stopped short and his eyes blew wide as he took in the structure before him. He exhaled a breath of utter disbelief as he roughly pushed past Braxiatel to step closer to it. "Brax," he breathed worriedly as he moved his hands to touch it, but snapped them away and into his chest before making contact. "Tell me this isn't a loom."

Braxiatel slipped his hands into his trouser pockets and strode a practiced glide across the polished steel floor of the room. "I could, but that'd be lying," he answered dismissively. He swallowed and then smirked. "Not that I am typically opposed to such, but in this instance, let's stick with the truth."

The Doctor attempted to touch the table once again. His hands hovered a moment about an inch above the cool stone and then finally pressed down slowly on it. "My wedding gift is a loom?"

"Well…"

"While the thought is appreciated, Brax – and it is – I think that Gal is proof that I don't need one of these to have children." He exhaled a shaking breath and smoothed his hands along the polished surface of the table. "But this' magnificent, none the less."

"Yes," Braxiatel agreed as he stepped beside the Doctor and also dropped a hand to run his palm along the cool stone. "And this one is rather special, Thete."

"Howso?"

Braxiatel raised his head and let his eyes drift to the technology that had been carefully arranged throughout the room. He inhaled a breath and spoke without looking to the Doctor.

"You've been assigned a task," he began carefully. "One of such vital importance, Thete, that it holds the very fate of our entire civilisation in its hands."

"I'm not changing the outcome of the Time War," the Doctor snapped back quickly. "So don't ask me to." He stepped back from the table and snapped his arms into a tight fold against his chest. "What happened in the war happened. It had to happen. Fixed point in time. I can't change it – not even if I wanted to."

"I'm not asking you to change the outcome of the war," Braxiatel smoothed out calmly. "Even with my limited knowledge of it, I could still quite easily arrange a team to head that off right now."

"But?"

"But you're right," he continued. "It's a fixed point – and one that could quite easily destroy the very fabric of all time and space if it's tampered with."

The Doctor exhaled through pursed lips. "Then what could you possibly ask of me?"

"As the last surviving member of our species, then the task becomes yours to rebuilt and ensure that we go on."

The Doctor had to laugh, and he did so with bluster and a long series of loud huffs. "What? By birthing a hoard of children with my _human_ wife?" He shook his head, and continued to laugh. "I am the very last Gallifreyan that you want to charge with that task, Braxiatel. I abhor the Time Lord society and everything they ever stood for, why would I possibly want to recreate that?"

Braxiatel spun on him with a snarl. "Because it's your _duty_ to do so," he growled into his brother's face. He made sure to add a point of his finger against the Doctor's chest. "You're the only survivor of an ancient and powerful race. The obligation to continue the legacy of our people and ensure its survival falls to you."

"What?"

Braxiatel stepped away with a huff and an annoyed flick of his hand. "Trust me, Thete. If I didn't have to lay this in your hands, then I wouldn't. Rassilon knows it might be a better option to put this task in the hands of a Sontaran than to hand it off to the likes of yourself, but like it or not, only a Time Lord can do it."

The Doctor dropped his head. "And I am the last…"

"So it's on you," Braxiatel repeated. "To save Gallifrey and all her children."

The Doctor shook his head. His face creased in sorrow. "I can't save them, Brax. I can't." He raised his head and squinted an agonizing cut of his eyes. "Gallifrey has to be destroyed. It's a fixed point in time. I can't stop that." He inhaled a shuddering breath and raised his head to stare through lidded eyes at the ceiling. "Gallifrey has to burn. The Daleks have to be destroyed. It's the only way."

Braxiatel stared at his brother for a moment. He steeled a stare into the freckled face of the man – the only man – to survive the Time War.

"How did you survive?" he queried darkly.

The Doctor exhaled through his nose. "Rose Tyler," he answered simply.

That wasn't quite the answer he was expecting, and so Braxiatel frowned a perplexed expression. "She was there?"

He actually had to think about that. His lips parted so that he could press the tip of his tongue against the side of his top lip as he considered the one hundred and fifty years he spent fighting in the war. "Yes. Briefly." His expression sobered and he looked toward Braxiatel. "But my salvation really didn't come until afterward; after the moment that I watched my planet get destroyed."

"Did you even fight?"

He nodded. "Front lines for well over a century. I was there for the fall of Arcadia, Brax. I watched our people fall…"

"And yet you still escaped," he stated with accusation. "The lone survivor."

The Doctor spat out a harsh and derisive laugh. "I didn't survive."

Braxiatel looked him up and down. " _Really_?"

"No," he answered quite simply. "I really didn't." He shrugged. "I immediately regenerated after Gallifrey's final moments…"

"A regeneration ensures your survival," Braxiatel snipped back.

"Let me finish you pompous git."

"Oh, go right ahead."

The Doctor inhaled a deep breath. "When I left Kasterborous, I was a walking dead man. I didn't want to survive." He tipped one shoulder up to his ear. "Well. I knew I had Rose in my life at that point, but it didn't matter to me at that moment. I knew I didn't deserve her anymore. I deserved death and by Rassilon I was going to find it."

Braxiatel shifted a look toward the Doctor that was full of annoyed disbelief. "How utterly poetic of you."

The Doctor shot his brother an annoyed glare. The glare softened to a look of resignation. "I had it planned, you know, my death. I didn't even think about it at the time; that it was the time and place I'd meet her." He screwed up his face and shook his head as he slipped his hands into his trouser pockets. "I just put together a bomb, made my way down to the basement and Henricks…"

"Where you took her hand and said _run_."

The Doctor smiled and nodded with a lowered head. "She told you that story, yeah?"

"I saw it in her memories, Thete." He set a hand on his brother's shoulder. "When her subconscious showed me her consent to bond with you, it was that encounter that stood out strongest in her mind."

The Doctor nodded again. "Mine, too, really." He sighed softly. "When I felt her hand in mine and the bond inside me flared into life…" He raised his head and drew in a shuddering breath as he lifted his hand to touch at his bonding pendant. "Oh. The timelines, Brax. I saw it all. _Remembered_ it all. Our memories of what had passed, the knowledge of what was to come. Her love, her all encompassing and unconditional love throughout all of my regenerations."

"And your son."

"Oh yes," he huffed out. "My brilliant son."

"He deserved to live," Braxiatel said softly. "That brilliant child had to be born."

"And without me he couldn't, could he?" He took a moment to breathe a few breaths and consider it all. "I fought it, though, Brax. I'm not too much of a coward to admit that much. I led Rose outside that building, told her to forget me, and then went up to the roof to detonate that bomb and blow myself and all of the autons to hell."

"You didn't, though," Braxiatel murmured in a manner to let the Doctor know that he was still listening.

The Doctor shook his head. "Each step I climbed and the further I moved away from her, the more I felt it. Pain. Pain of never seeing her smile again. Of denying every man following me the joy and support she and Gal gave me during my darkest moments as I burned through my regenerations…" He let that hang for a moment before he sniffed hard to crinkle up his nose. "Well. I couldn't do that, could I? I couldn't change my personal future at all. I had to survive. I had to find her. I had to let her heal me."

"Then you had to lose her."

"I knew that was an inevitability." He inhaled to shake off the sorrow and bring himself to smile. "But I get her back, and that's the main thing." He swallowed hard enough to show his dimples and frown. But his features slowly relaxed with each word he spoke. "So to answer your question, my survival was Rose. Without her I would've died and there wouldn't be any Time Lords left at all."

"And with that knowledge, you didn't try to prevent it?"

"For some reason our separation was a fixed point," he muttered blandly before giving Braxiatel a sharp look. "And don't think for a moment that I didn't spend days and weeks and months trying to figure out a way to work around that, to save the fixed point and keep my wife and unborn child." He pressed his lips together in a full pout that poked out his lower lip further than the top and exhaled a blast of breath across it. "I may be a genius, but I couldn't work my way around that one."

"Changing a fixed point is not genius, Thete, it's suicidal and insane."

The Doctor tilted his head to scratch at his sideburn. "But what I can't understand is just _why_ it's a fixed point." He stopped scratching and righted the tilt of his head. "I mean, yeah. Okay. It'd break a causal loop if we weren't separated, but the universe _could_ compensate for it. My life means very little in the grand old scheme of the entirety of the universe…"

"Obviously not," Braxiatel challenged.

The Doctor rewarded that comment with a weary stare.

Braxiatel continued. "Or maybe she's more important that you think."

"A much more believable scenario."

Braxiatel leaned his backside on the edge of the loom. "You're both important in _the grand old scheme of the entirety of this universe_ ," he half mocked. His mocking tone edged off at the Doctor's harsh glare and he found himself patting his palm against the air to stop an oncoming tirade. "Gallifrey's destruction and the end of the Time War are fixed points that are so vital to the continuation of the universe that it was time locked…"

"All of Kasterborous is Time Locked," the Doctor argued hotly. "Always has been."

"Do you think you can shut your gob and let me air my hypothesis here?"

"Go right ahead," he shot back flippantly.

"Nothing at all can be done to save our planet, Thete. That much is obvious." He kept his eyes on his brother but absently stroked at the top of the table behind him. "But the survival of the Time Lord race _is_ a flux point. I know this, I've done my research."

"Okay…"

"However, the survival of our race does hinge upon one man." He pointed to the Doctor with an upward held palm. "You." He then smirked. "And to some degree, me. I did have to do all the legwork to ensure that you are well enough equipped to handle the task ahead of you.."

"A task I still haven't agreed to undertake, mind."

"But without Rose Tyler's unshielded memories of the small parts of the Time War, then I wouldn't have known to set these events in motion to ensure the survival of our race." He grinned a smile of eureka. "She had to be lost to you, Thete. She had to return to now, where she is fated to meet and marry your Fourth self. I had to go into her mind and see that flash inside her subconscious so that I could spend the next few centuries ensuring that everything was ready for when you and I finally meet, now, for the final time." He nodded with self pride. "I have a lot of work ahead of me over the next several centuries, that's for sure. Because what I'd set in here, and what is in here now are two very different things."

The Doctor took a sharp look around them. "howso?"

"The loom. Yes. I had that installed in your Fourth self's capsule four months ago. I had been monitoring the transplantation readings since and it integrated with the Capsule…"

"TARDIS," the Doctor corrected.

"TARDIS, indeed," Braxiatel droned. "The integration into your _TARDIS_ matrix was successful. It's fully operational and ready to loom a Gallifreyan whenever you are."

"I will bear womb-born children only," the Doctor warned. "Gal will have brothers and sisters, not cousins."

"Which is why I am currently putting together a listing of trusted and worthy Time Lord scientists and officials to …" He grinned a wide smile and lifted off the table to stride quickly across the floor toward an ornate metal cabinet that stretched from floor to ceiling and took up the bulk of the back wall. He pulled the doors open and let out a long laugh. "And this is where I gather the intelligence I need to put this plan in motion."

The Doctor appeared at his side. "Any intelligence at all would be a good thing."

"There we are, Thete. Lines and lines of them."

"Lines and lines of what?" He looked into the cupboard and gagged out a cough of disbelief. There were hundreds of fob watches hanging from hooks inside a cupboard that extended at least twelve feet beyond the back wall. "By Rassilon's crown, are those…?"

"Time Lords," Braxiatel purred. "Time Lords in wait."

The Doctor stepped into the walk-in cupboard with a twist and turn of exploration. "There are _hundreds_ of them in here."

"There are," Braxiatel said with thrill. "Hundreds of watches, each of them bearing the pure essence of a brilliant Gallifreyan who can – once reunited with his physical form – help to rebuild our society." He grinned a wide smile. "Oh, but I'm brilliant."

The Doctor had to chuckle. "That's _my_ line."

"And your arrogance," Braxiatel quipped in response. "And one I feel worthy of showing right now." He spun on his heel and rushed out of the room and skipped from toe to toe as he searched the room for a data terminal. "I have to have left myself enough information to begin my own preparations."

The Doctor stepped out of the closet and closed the doors behind him with a shake of disbelief in his head. "So all this time, inside my TARDIS, I've held the consciousness of hundreds of my fellow Time Lords." He held his hands tightly against the cabinet door handles and pressed his forehead against the metal door. His voice lowered to a whisper. "And I thought I was the only one left – alone in the universe."

Braxiatel found his quarry and flopped down into a chair on wheels. He used the kick of his heels on the floor to drag himself to the terminal, which he switched on with a tap of a button. "Time Lords are survivors," he said with a smile. "We always have been."

The Doctor didn't move from his position, but he breathed out a short laugh. "I guess so."

Braxiatel focused on the data scrolling on his screen and moved in closer to scrutinise the information. "Your task is great, Thete."

"I still haven't agreed to it."

Braxiatel swivelled in the chair to look toward his brother with a frown of disgust. He was annoyed that the Doctor still had his forehead pressed against the door so that he couldn't see the glare. "Our father…"

"Brax, don't."

"No, Thete. You're going to listen to me," he growled. "And for the love of Arcadia turn around and look at me when I'm talking to you."

The Doctor turned slowly and made sure to huff out a breath of annoyance loud enough for Braxiatel to hear it. "Right-oh, go ahead."

"Our father spent the better part of his thirteenth defending you and working to dispel the belief that you were going to be the one that destroyed Gallifrey."

The Doctor blinked. He swallowed thickly. He nodded slowly.

"He didn't care what the matricians had to say – and neither did Quences for that matter."

"The word of the matricians is nothing bur pointless hocus pocus irrelevance anyway," he huffed. "I will either be the most influential Time Lord since Rassilon or I will be the destroyer of Gallifrey." He rolled his hand on his wrist with a dismissive wave. "Anything in between is okay, too. That's not exactly intelligent prophesising, Brax."

"And you know that council do have the reputation for taking the negative prophesy over the positive." He leaned back heavily in the chair and crossed his legs at the knee as he folded his arms across his chest. "And it was the belief of all that you would be the Time Lord that was responsible for the dissolution of the Time Lord society and the destruction of Gallifrey."

 _Oh how right they were…_

The Doctor shook his head. "If you want to get technical, Brax. I am. The whole conflict with the Daleks began because of my interference." He rolled his eyes and nodded. "Granted, it was on the orders of council that I interfere in the first place. And I was given no choice in the matter." He shot a look toward Braxiatel. "And my not neutralizing the entire Dalek race and committing genocide would have done very little to stop them. They had the means and the scientific data to recreate that entire species. Killing them would've done nothing. If I committed genocide, then the war would have taken hold much sooner than it did."

Braxiatel blinked. "Who gave you those orders?"

"Does it matter?" he snapped.

"Has it already happened in my timeline?"

The Doctor nodded. "Interpret it as you will, Brax. I will forever blame Rassilon for the war that destroyed my planet more than I will blame the Daleks."

"Rassilon's dead."

The Doctor laughed. "You of all people should know that Time Lords don't _stay_ dead."

Braxiatel was silent for a moment. When he finally spoke it was after a deep inhale and on a quiet tone. "Did you love him?"

"Who," the Doctor spat indignantly. " _Rassilon_?"

"No, you fool. Our father."

He rolled his eyes. "What kind of question is _that_? You ask a Time Lord if he felt an emotion that Time Lords are not supposed to feel toward the most stoic and unemotional of all of them?"

"Yes," Braxiatel answered with curiosity. "I am asking, and I want an honest answer."

"Did _you_?"

"I asked you first."

The doctor thrust his hands into his pockets and looked left, right, and then left again. His answer was barely audible. "I loved him as much as I hated him."

"Love and hate," Braxiatel offered. "There really isn't that much to differentiate the two emotions."

"All consuming and powerful, yes. Very poetic, Brax. I await your next book of verse."

"He loved you dearly," Braxiatel said with emotion in his voice. "As did Quences and Innocet. _Loved_ , Thete. Do you understand that?" He watched several emotions flit past the Doctor's eyes. "Quences, he didn't like anyone. But he doted on you. Innocet, she still sings quietly, plays the peacekeeper, and wishes you were still home."

"If only you really knew," the Doctor said quietly.

"Tell me different, Thete. Look me in the eye and tell me differently. The rest of our cousins, the conniving set of lowly life forms that they are, I don't care too much about, but Quences and Innocet. They're special."

The Doctor lifted his head and laughed. "Quences? Oh, he was as selfish as the rest of them. He took to me because he thought I could become something great…"

"So prove him right."

"Hold on, what?"

Braxiatel flicked a brow and smirked in challenge. "Prove him right. I know he disowned you when you left the academy because of your whimsical announcement of wanting to be a Doctor over having a council appointment, but that didn't mean he didn't still believe – even when the rest of Lungbarrow disagreed."

The Doctor had to laugh. "Oh, Brax. Your methods of persuasion need some work. They're all dead. All of them. All burned when Gallifrey did. I have no need to prove anything to the dead."

"Then do it for Rose and Gallifrey…"

"Don't!" the Doctor snapped sharply.

"I'm sure that the both of them would leap on the opportunity to save an entire species from extinction – especially when that species is yours."

"That's not fair of you to bring them into this."

"Gal was named after our planet, Thete."

The Doctor grimaced. "I said don't."

"You wouldn't have given him that name if it didn't mean anything to you – if you didn't want it to live on." He slowly drew himself from the chair and approached his brother with wary steps. "Give your son his legacy. Save our civilisation together. Bring the Time Lords back from the dead."

"You don't know what they had become at the end, Brax. I can't."

"Then change what they became back to who they should be." He looked with desperation into the Doctor's eyes and set his hands on his shoulders. "Brother to brother, and I make this plea from the deepest depths of both of my hearts. Don't let us disappear and die."

"Is _your_ watch in there?"

"Excuse me?"

The Doctor looked up to Braxiatel with a serious stare. "If your watch isn't in that room, then I won't do it. I felt the agonies of four billion deaths that day, Brax. None cut me as deep as yours."

"I'm not really sure how to respond to that."

"Gal, Rose and I. We'll find our lost Time Lords and return them to their rightful form." He rolled his shoulder to pull free of Braxiatel. "Provided you're one of the Lords I'm looking for."

"I'll do my best, but…"

"Swear to me that you're in there," the Doctor snapped sharply. "Make a vow to me that won't be broken – that cannot be broken."

"It's my oath to you, brother, that I will be among those lost."

"Then find me a planet as close to Gallifrey as you can find. If I'm doing this, I'm doing it right."

There was silence, heavy silence between them both. It was a thundering kind of silence that was so thick they could practically draw nourishment from it.

Finally, however, the Doctor snapped form his stony silence. He inhaled a fast and sharp breath, clapped his hands, and broke out into a wide smile.

"Well then. No sense in wasting time, then. Looks like you have some work ahead of you, and I have plenty to plan." He slipped his hands into his trouser pockets. "Well. Hopefully you'll do much of that planning for me and I really won't have to plan. I don't much like planning, really. More of a run with it and make it up on the fly kind of guy…"

"Oh ho ho," a small cheery voice chuckled from the doorway. "Ok. This room is way cool! What is it?"

"Gallifrey, my boy," the Doctor chirped. "This." He looked to Braxiatel with a smile. His voice fell from brilliantly chirpy to light and friendly. "This is where we save the universe."

"Awesome," Gallifrey breathed with awe. "Like the Justice League Headquarters, or something. That's cool."

The Doctor scruffed the lad's hair. "Yep. Something like that my little Flubble. Now tell me. Where _is_ your mother?"


	58. The Time Lord Gob

A/N: I'm having difficulty in letting go ... It's been hard for me to get into the final chapter because I'm just not ready to say goodbye yet. I've literally been on and off this chapter for going on a week now ... a paragraph here, there...

That said - I tried. But, I just wanted to do some more nonsensical play with Ten and Gal and Brax before I closed this out ... and I do solemnly swear - I vow to you all - that the next chapter will be the absolute last of it. I was going to keep on this one and just post a gigantic last chapter, but I find that I am reading, rereading, editing, adding, deleting, the same text over and over again... So this lot had to go in order to move on.

Sorry to prolong this ... fingers crossed the last of it is complete by this afternoon. That's the plan, anyway...

~~oooOOOooo~~

He loved the feel of Gal's tiny hand in his. He loved it more that it was Gallifrey who reached for _his_ hand. It was even more brilliant that the taking of his hand seemed as though it was a completely natural instinct.

"Come on, Dad," the youngster chirped as he tugged to lead the two of them on a walk through the corridors of the TARDIS. "Auntie Romana's eager to get she and Dad back on their travels." He sniffed with a smile. "Apparently she found her stay with _this you_ pretty boring."

The Doctor's brows rose at that. "Boring, really?"

Gallifrey bumped at the Doctor with his shoulder and looked up with a grin. "But Martha said you didn't want to move the TARDIS at all, because you were worried that you'd mess up the landing or something and would miss us."

The Doctor lowered his chin and pursed his lips a moment so that he could look up along the corridor through his lashes. "The old girl wouldn't have moved if I asked her to, anyway. She powered down completely when you and your mother left."

"Powered down completely?" he asked with surprise. "You mean just her navigational and flight systems, yeah?" He waited for the Doctor to nod. "Because if she locked herself down completely, you lot would've frozen to death." He shuddered and hugged himself. "It's really cold out there."

"Well," the Doctor sang with a grin. "Not really. It'd take a century of so for the cold to penetrate the deepest rooms if she were shut down completely – and that's if we were parked in the middle of the Arctic for the entire duration of that century. She's an impenetrable girl, our TARDIS. Even the cold battles to get in through her tired old wooden doors. Nothing gets in!"

"I did," Gallifrey sang proudly.

He pursed his lips a second and then frowned in recollection of Gallifrey's return to TARDIS. "You got in with a key, didn't you?" he queried curiously.

"Yep. You gave me one about two days after we landed on Gallifrey," Gal answered with a smile. "Not that I really need one, mind. Auntie TARDIS wouldn't exactly lock me out." He petted at the wall. "Would you, gorgeous? Nope. You love your little Time Boy, don't you?"

The Doctor had to chuckle. "I'm sure she does. Likes the little ones this old girl." He rubbed at the back of his neck as they walked. "They're a protective lot, the TARDISes. Especially the females. Very maternal. You know, there have been stories about the maternal instincts of a female TARDIS, and the lengths that they have gone through to protect young tots"

"You know, Dad," Gallifrey interrupted with a shake of his head. "It's at this point that you're supposed to gasp and gush about how _special_ I am that I have a TARDIS who unconditionally loves me."

His jaw dropped and he let out a quiet sound of _ahhhh._ He then straightened his gait, cleared his throat, and levelled his voice. "Quite right, little Flubble. A very special child you are, indeed. So special, in fact, that the last of all TARDIS'es has taken it upon herself to adopt you as her own and stand as your protector."

Braxiatel's voice gravelled from their rear. "She is not the last, Thete."

The Doctor paused in place. He slowly turned toward Gallifrey and then past him to look between them at his brother. "Hold on, what?"

Braxiatel shifted the weight of a large brief case from one hand to the other and thumbed over his shoulder to the door at the end of the corridor. "There are a few hundred Lords in wait back there, Brother. It's safe to say that there are just as many capsules silently waiting on their Time Lords as well."

Gallifrey's intrigue was piqued. "A _few hundred_?" he queried with wide eyes.

The Doctor leaned down just slightly to speak to Gallifrey on a quiet voice. "We'll discuss it later, Gal."

"Hmmm," he hummed curiously. "Sounds like some fun and games might be in your future, Dad. Yeah?"

The Doctor lifted his chin to huff out a laugh. "Oh my precious boy. There is _always_ fun and adventure in my future."

"And your past…"

"That, too, Gal." He tugged him close to put his arm over his shoulder in a side-hug. "And now I get to have my adventures with my boy! How brilliant." He kept a wide grin on his face as he looked toward Braxiatel. His eyes dropped to the briefcase hanging from his hand. "Got what you needed, then?"

Braxiatel gave a firm nod. "And judging by the state of the papers and the data travellers in here, I've looked through it many, many, many times."

"Perhaps many many lifetimes," the Doctor offered with a smirk.

"Oh don't start," Braxiatel snapped. "Never pique my curiosity, Thete. I can quite easily verify the age of these documents using even the archaic Earth dating techniques."

"But it could be interesting to know," The Doctor suggested with intrigue. "Just how long have we been at it, then? Well. How long _you've_ been at it, really. I still don't know if I'm even going to go ahead and let your many lifetimes of hard work actually amount to anything." He sniffed an indignant inhale. "Kind've like the idea of being the last…"

Braxiatel narrowed an unimpressed glare toward his brother as he leaned down to Gallifrey. He kept his voice low. "Just how much do you think you need your father in your life, Gal? Are you close to him?"

"Brax," a low warning brother to brother.

Gallifrey, on the other hand, merely shot his uncle a cheeky grin and lifted his chin to speak in a conspiratorial manner. "Why? Whatcha have in mind?"

"Oh," Braxiatel chipped with pride in the boy. He actually snatched the boy into his arms for a celebratory hug. He grinned wide when he picked the boy up off the ground. "A _negotiation_! Oh there is Time Lord in this child, after all!"

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at his brother. "Put him down, Brax."

Braxiatel ignored the Doctor and looked into the young boy's beaming face. "Come back to Gallifrey with me, young Gal. We'll enroll you into the Academy and have you groomed as a member of council. Oh, but you'll give them a run for their money, won't you?"

"I won't accept any position less than Lord President, Uncle Brax," Gallifrey countered with a cheeky grin. "Just so you know."

Braxiatel half purred as he looked around the scruffy head of the eight year old to peer excitedly at the Doctor. "Ambition, too! Oh, Thete. Let me train this young lad in the ways of the Time Lords."

"No taa," the Doctor growled in response. He held out his hand in an order for Braxiatel to release the child. "Now give me back my son before I begin to entertain in my mind the myriad of ways I can exhaust you of any remaining regenerations – just _how many_ do you have left?"

"More than you," he chipped back as he set Gallifrey's feet back on the floor. "Eleven of them, actually. Unlike you, I'm not burning through them like Satthralope burns her gruel…"

"Oh, fantastic analogy," the Doctor drolled with a roll in his eyes.

"Got a better one?"

"Nothing immediately comes to mind."

Braxiatel grinned. He gestured toward Gallifrey with his hand. "So? Are you onboard with the lad returning to Gallifrey? I can have him schooled and then brought back to you within only moments of your timeline."

The Doctor's expression darkened as he thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. He shook his head as he walked with a slouch toward the console room of his TARDIS. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response."

Braxiatel fell into easy stride at his side. "Well if we wish to be technical, that _is_ one."

"Oh why don't you go copulate with an autogenous identic genome."

Gallifrey gasped. "Dad!"

The Doctor looked horrified. "You understood that?"

"Yeah," he shot back indignantly. "I did. I'm not an idiot, you know."

Braxiatel chuckled. "Oh how wonderful that I can actually sit back and not have to retort to your loomish insults." He scruffed Gallifrey's hair. "Not when I have this brilliant youngster to pipe up on my behalf."

The Doctor snorted. "Coward."

"Time Lord," Braxiatel corrected with a waggle in his brow.

"Yes. Yes. Right," the Doctor agreed with a laugh. "Time Lord."

Silence fell upon them, but it only lasted a short moment. As they crossed into the console room, the Doctor suddenly grinned and clapped his hands. "Right! So. Let's go find my wife."

Gallifrey pursed his lips and found himself walking a sideways walk that herded his father in a diagonal line away from the doorway. "Don't be too excited, Dad. Remember that she's saying good bye to .. to _Dad_ right now. You might want to look a little guilty or somethin', ya know?"

The Doctor paused his stride and lifted a brow to look down at his child. "Guilty?"

"Well yeah," he breathed quickly. "You're kind've taking her away from him."

"He's _me_ ," he countered.

"And you think that makes it any easier?"

Braxiatel nodded. "I agree with your boy. You've gotten very close to her during these past few months, Thete. You've been happy – truly happy – and I've never seen that in you before." He winced as he exhaled. "This is very hard on you."

"I do remember how much I hurt when I left here," the Doctor admitted gently. "I wish I could remember our time on Gallifrey, though." He shrugged. "But I can't. I forced myself to forget I suppose."

"Because what occurred between your return to being a Time Lord and then ultimately Rose's return here to Earth are events that _had_ to happen," Braxiatel warned gently. "You were a right mess and could barely take it when you returned to Gallifrey with her dying in your arms. You vowed to me more than once that you weren't ever going to let it happen to her again."

The Doctor's voice quietened to a low and hoarse gravel. "What happened to her?"

Braxiatel winced as he dropped his head and rubbed his thumb and finger along his brows. "She almost didn't make it." He lifted his head and gazed apologetically at his brother. "The Vortex power and the regeneration energy. Thete. Her human body couldn't withstand all of that energy. In trying to save her, all thirteen of you actually killed her."

"But then how…?"

Braxiatel inhaled deeply through his mouth. "It's a discussion best left for the two of you, Brother." He exhaled slowly. "But do know that your Rose Tyler is a marvel. Strong. So very strong willed."

Gallifrey chuckled. "She gets that from me, you know."

"How would she get that from you?" Braxiatel barked incredulously. "If anything, young lord, you got it from her."

He grinned and shook his head, oblivious to his father's distress beside him. "Nah. I just exude awesomeness, remember." He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and leaned cheekily forward. "And as awesomeness can be contagious. Well. It only makes sense that Mum picked up a little bit of it." He lifted his head and tilted it to one side with mirth. "Helps that I have some of that voodoo bad wolf in me too…"

"Again, from your mother," Braxiatel said with a smirk.

"Nope. All me." He paused to give a toothy grin. "Take me to the Citadel and gimme a robe and headpiece – that's how good I am."

Braxiatel slowly blinked his eyes and rolled his head to offer his brother a pleading look. "Will you _please_ consent to me sending this lad to the Academy? He is already more _Time Lord_ than half of the men on council right now." He stopped at the distraught look on his brother's face. "Thete?"

"Why would I make myself forget it, Brax?" the Doctor queried quietly in a voice laced with utter confusion. "If it was that bad and I was so sure that I would do everything I could to ensure that it wouldn't happen again." He looked to his brother. "Why would I make myself forget it?"

"You didn't," Braxiatel admitted quietly.

"But…"

"I did it," he continued with a sharper voice. "I entered your mind and I _made you forget_ everything that happened from the moment that _this_ you became yourself again until your TARDIS takes off from here."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "Was that with or without my permission, Brax?"

Braxiatel let out a breath and softened his voice. "With," he answered after a moment. "I would never do that to you without you expressly consenting."

The Doctor nodded.

"Now, Thete," Braxiatel continued. "Knowing what you know about these events and the importance of it all. Would _you_ want to stop it?" He held up his briefcase. "This. This is all because of what's happened here over these past few days for you." He put his hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "And you now have your chance at a real _forever_ with your Rose. Would you want to give that up?"

The Doctor tightly shook his head. "No."

"Then don't question what we had to do to allow it all to pass." He offered a supportive smile. "Don't blame yourself or even hold yourself accountable for what your beloved faced these past few years, because _she_ isn't. Your wife is stronger than anyone – man or woman, Time Lord or no – that I have ever seen. And she loves you unconditionally."

The Doctor nodded slowly. "I know, Brax."

"And if you start to go all angst-boy on her and start to blame yourelf for anything you've missed…"

"I have that right," the Doctor snapped in return. He gestured sharply toward Gallifrey with a flick of his hand. "I missed _everything_ to this point. Everything."

"Not something to dwell on, Thete," Braxiatel shot back just as sharply. "Doesn't do any of you any good to focus on times lost when you have times ahead to share." He put his hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "That said, and to clarify: It's time that you began to focus on what's ahead, of you, Thete. Not dwell on what's passed."

"That's pretty deep," the Doctor droned. "How long did it take you to think that one up?"

"I didn't," he admitted with a shrug and absolutely zero shame at all. "Picked that one up off your wife. Such a remarkable woman is your Rose Tyler. So much wisdom gained in such a short life."

"She is brilliant," the Doctor gushed with a sigh.

"That she is, Brother."

Gallifrey had to chuckle. He gestured between both Time Lords. "Look out, Dad. Reckon you might have some competition."

"Competition would imply that Braxiatel here stood a chance." The Doctor shot his brother an indignant look and snorted a blast though his nose. "I hardly think so. If she found herself in a position where she'd have to choose between him and me. I'd win every time."

"Well," Braxiatel practically sang. "A pairing bond will generally ensure victory, Thete."

"Nah," he drawled. "She's truly that taken by me. "You?" One side of his face lifted as though to shrug. He gestured a motion of his hand up and down Braxiatel's form. "Meh. Not her type. All proper and perfectly coiffed and … prat."

"Prat?" Braxiatel huffed indignantly with one brow curled into a high arch.

"Yes," The Doctor answered with a wide grin and a light sway in his shoulders. " _Prat_. And, oh, I think I like that one. Prat…" He rolled the word around his tongue a moment. Perfectly distracted.

"Dad?"

The Doctor shook himself. "Yes. Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes. Prats and my Rose's preference in Time Lord." He spared Braxiatel an analytical look. "Bad dress sense, a bit too mature looking. Complete and utter prat." He shrugged. "Not her type."

"Then shall we see about that, my brother," he challenged as he smiled and motioned with a light bow to the doorway. "Let's go see your beautiful Rose and the man she's currently saying goodbye to."

His eyes briefly flashed, especially at Gallifrey's sharp burst of laughter. He quickly fell into an annoyed expression. "She fell in love with me first," the Doctor grumbled at his side. " _Him_? That was simply a default fall into love."

Braxiatel laughed. "Oh and if I don't have this desperate urge to challenge you to say that to her."

Gallifrey chuckled from behind them. "He'd be in the doghouse for the next decade if he did, I'd say." He huffed. "Which I won't allow, because. Because I want a sister, damnit!"

The Doctor hid his smirk behind his hand. "Language, Gal."

"Language nothing," the youngster gruffed. "It's not too much to ask, you know. Just you an' mum go get frisky…"

"I think there's a little more to it than that, Gallifrey," Braxiatel cut in as the Doctor reddened.

"No," Gallifrey challenged. "Easy peasy, really. I'll look after her." He gestured toward his father. "Mum and Dad, they don't have to do anything. I'll feed her. I'll change her and take her out to play."

The Doctor's brow arched high over his left eye. "Do you want a sibling or a _pet_ , Gal?" He looked to his brother. "You could get the lad a flubble, yeah? I could deal with one of them on the TARDIS."

"Until she goes into heat," Braxiatel advised flatly. "That is one of the least pleasant sounds in the universe."

"Then find me a male one."

"…Who will compete with you when your own mate goes into heat."

The Doctor shook his head with a roll in his eye and a shake in his head. "I've taken on entire armies, obliterated civilizations and destroyed the most fearsome troops across the multiverse. I think I can settle a randy Flubble."

"If you think so…"

The Doctor rubbed at his eye with his fingertip and considered it a moment. "You're probably right. Best not get one of those, then."

"Are you sure?" Braxiatel teased. "Because I happen to know a very good breeder…"

The Doctor shuddered. "No taa."

Gallifrey pulled at the door handle to take them outside. "Geez. If the thought of a Flubble trying to get it on with mum is such an extreme concern…" He motioned a retching action. "Not to forget the single most _ew_ image on the planet…"

"Universe," the Doctor corrected with a look of horror that matched his son's perfectly.

"Yeah," Gallifrey agreed. "Multiverse." He then shook himself, shrugged and snipped his fingers in the air like a pair of scissors. "Simple fix, though. Then get it neutered."

Braxiatel peeped and took a step backward in shock. The Doctor leaned down to his child. "That's practically blasphemous, Gal. Time Lords don't _neuter_ anything."

"Yeah you do," he shot back.

"Procreation is the imperative of every species," Braxiatel added urgently. "To remove the ability of any creature of any species to reproduce is, well…"

"Looms," Gallifrey answered simply.

"Excuse me, Young Lord?"

"Looms," he repeated with a shrug and a roll in his eyes.

"Your point being?"

"You lot all took away your own ability to procreate in any _natural_ way. Same thing as getting it snipped, really."

The Doctor tipped one of his shoulders to his ear in a nonchalant shrug of agreement. "He's got a point, Brax. When you think about it, we as a society basically neutered ourselves."

"And how apt is it that it was Gallifrey's renegade child who went against the societal norm and fathered himself a naturally conceived child?"

A happy sound giggled in the back of the Doctor's throat as his mouth spread into a wide and toothy grin. "And a brilliant one at that, am I right, Gal?"

Gallifrey's smile was identical to his fathers as he beamed back in reply. "Never before have truer words been spoken, Dad. I'm brilliant. Course I am. Totally goes without saying, really. I mean. I'm _yours_ , right?" He shrugged. "It's genetics!"

"So's the mouth, apparently," Braxiatel mused through pursed lips.

"Oh. That's just a Time Lord thing," he announced with a flick of his hand. "Total Time Lord gob. Although." He paused and pursed his lips. "Oh. Ooh. Then again. I've heard grandma when she starts going on the phone – and let me tell you, _she's_ got a gob." His eyes widened and his smirk fell to a worrisome expression and he looked helplessly toward his father. "My God. Half time Lord and part Jackie Tyler. I'm completely screwed aren't I?"

The Doctor couldn't help himself in suddenly lunging forward to snatch his boy into a hug. He giggled against the lad's ear. "Love the gob, Gal. Just love it."

"I agree with your father," Braxiatel said with a wink as he passed by them to exit the TARDIS. "Embrace your ability to speak an endless prattle, Gallifrey. Why, as you noted it is the mark of a true Time Lord to speak until he can speak no more…"

"Or until your audience has fallen asleep," the Doctor added.

"That doesn't stop any council member I've ever met, Thete," Braxiatel clipped back with a shrug. "I recall several months ago that Borusa went on a longwinded rant about … oh, something I'd rather not recall … and the Matrix showed that he prattled on for a good hour before he realized that the entire chambers had fallen asleep on him."

"Then let me guess," the Doctor said with a chuckle. "The self-proclaimed and exulted Prydonian Telepathic Master continued his speech via telepathic contact to each and every one of you."

Braxiatel offered his brother a weary look, but admitted nothing – But it wouldn't have mattered if he did. The moment that the Doctor caught sight of Blonde hair being tenderly stroked by the hands of his younger self, the entire world disappeared around him.


	59. Home

A/N: This is it. the end. The final chapter in this mammoth piece!

I want to thank each and every one of you for all of your comments and encouragement and basically for joining me on this ride and being as excited as I was as we plodded through it all.

I'm glad that you stuck it out and followed me here... It is heartwarming to know that you were willing to waste so much time on reading my little tale. You guys are awesome!

i truly hope that the ending is not disappointing. I had much difficulty writing this because I wasn't ready to finish it up ... so ... wibble...

 _~~oooOOOooo~~_

 _Time Lords don't cry._

 _Time Lords don't cry_

 _Ti-ime Lords do-on't cry-y-y-y (They don't cry)._

 _Ti-ime Lords do-on't cry-y (Who said they don't cry?)_

Oh it would be easy to launch into song in an attempt to try and stave off the tears that burned in the back of his eyes. He was a Four Seasons fan and did thoroughly enjoy their music. However, his deep baritone voice was in no way capable of rising to the upper registry required for a decent falsetto voice, so perhaps singing such a song might not be as good an idea as he thought it might be…

…But it would very likely assist in being able to lighten his current mood, which was definitely somewhere between brooding and completely miserable.

Completely and utterly defeated, damaged, demoralized, disheartened, dispirited, downheartened, deflated, dejected….

…And today's brooding was brought to you by the letter "D".

There was a shudder against his chest, and the Doctor looked down at the messy blonde hair that was half crushed into his chest, but yet still shifted with the winds blowing off the pasture.

"Are you cold?" he queried gently with a shift in his stance to give him room to remove his coat.

Rose's fingers clutched tighter against his shirt and she shook her head as she pressed her forehead deeper into his chest. "No, Doctor," she pleaded desperaely. "Don't go. I'm not ready to say goodbye to you yet."

"Oh," he cooed with a smile. He held the smile as he levered her chin up with a light and tender touch of his crooked finger. "It's not _goodbye_ , my precious girl."

She swiped a clumsy wipe at her eyes with the flowing sleeve of her Gallifreyan-made peasant-style dress. "How isn't it goodbye when I'm about to watch you leave in the TARDIS?" She sniffed a series of west and stuffy sniffs and then inhaled through her mouth. "You-You're leaving me here, how is that _not_ goodbye?"

He whispered her name with enough extension to the end to take him through an entire exhale. He used the quiet of his inhale to concentrate on the feel of her hair underneath his hands as he smoothed it tenderly against her head. "I think we can both agree, my precious girl, that I'm leaving you in very good hands." He lifted his eyes to look past her toward where her pinstriped Doctor stood anxiously off in the near distance. "Hands that look like they want to hold on to yours tightly."

"Hands that couldn't hold tightly enough to prevent you being separated not once, but twice," Romana groused impatiently.

Rose inhaled a gasp, but the Doctor bellowed Romana's name in a sharp snap of incredulity.

Romana seemed nonplussed by the Doctor's sudden and very furious glare. She merely swallowed and lifted her chin to pass a look along her nose toward the man in pinstripes. "If you're looking for an excuse to prolong the time you have with your wife and child, Doctor, then might I remind you of the many errors made by this incarnation of yours…" She gestured toward the Tenth Doctor "…that has led to the breaking of Rose's heart."

"Romana," the Doctor growled. "That's just about enough, don't you think?"

"I suggest that perhaps you may want to wait until his next incarnation to return his wife and child to him." She tipped her head to one side and regarded Ten as he slipped his fidgeting hands into his pockets and rocked on his Converse. "And pray for an incarnation that is less clumsy, perhaps."

"If I let him know of that suggestion," the Doctor barked back sharply. "Then I can guarantee that he will regenerate on the spot. As would I if given the same ultimatum." He exhaled sharply and drew in a breath as hard. "Really, Romana. How insensitive can you be?"

"I'm an academy-trained Lady of Time, Doctor. Insensitivity was part of the first year…"

"Indeed," he replied with a snort.

"Truthfully," Romana continued as she ran her hand down Rose's arm and offered the upset woman a supportive smile. "This whole episode pains me as much as it does you. I am as hesitant to part ways with Rose and young Gallifrey as you are." She moaned dramatically as the young boy in question let out a squeak and hugged her tightly around the hips. "Don't misconstrue my meaning, Gallifrey. I would just like to see you registered at the Academy and trained the way that all Time Tots should be trained instead of schooled on this ill equipped planet."

"Stop faking it," he purred with a look up into her face. "Your hearts are beating for me, aren't they?"

"Hardly."

He held his finger to his lips and shushed her. He let his eyes flutter closed ad he pressed his ear to just underneath her bosom. "Buh-boom buh-boom," he chanted quietly. "Galli-frey Galli-frey." His voice remained just barely above a whisper. "There's no denying it, Romana. Don't worry. I won't break them, I promise."

Romana shook her head with a smile as she let her hand lightly fall atop his head. Her eyes shifted to Rose and the Doctor. "Don't let him grow up to aimlessly roam the universe like his father," she warned. "There'll be hearts broken across all space and time."

"Like there are for his father," Rose whispered with a smile. She held her hand out to Romana. "Thank you, Romana. For everything. Getting to know you has been wonderful."

"Likewise, Rose Tyler," Romana replied with a gentle smile as she took Rose's hand and gave it a squeeze. "You and Martha, you've opened my eyes to the grave injustice that is the opinion of my people towards a species such as yours."

Rose had to chuckle lightly at that. "Oh. I dunno. Meet the rest of my species and you'll probably find that your Time Lords have it pretty accurate." She let out a long sigh and gave Romana a somewhat sheepish look. "We're pretty low-class, really. You know, as a species."

"Mine are no better," Romana cooed. She swept her hand over Rose's hair in a touching and intimate gesture. "Keep those two Time Lords of yours safe – Rassilon knows the two of them are rubbish without a strong woman standing behind them to steer them right."

Rose launched forward to hug the Time Lady inside a fierce embrace. She sniffed and then exhaled a shaking breath which led to a shaking voice. "Take care of him for me, Romana. Don't let him go and do anything stupid."

Romana chuckled against her hair. "Oh, Rose Tyler. Don't ask me to do the impossible." She closed her arms around Rose to complete their embrace. "But I vow to you that I'll try."

"Good," Rose stated before a loud sniff. She stepped back and wiped at her nose with the edge of her sleeve. Her eyes shifted toward the Doctor and she managed a weak smile. "Now you listen to her, yeah? Don't do stupid things. You take care of yourself so that you can blow up my job and we can begin this journey of ours all over, yeah?"

"Ahh but my dear," he replied on a soft voice that hovered in his lowest register. "In order for us to meet and begin that journey I have to live and then die five times."

Her voice cracked as she tried to chuckle through her tears. "Then you'd better get started on that, yeah?"

"But not if I'm playing it safe, Rose."

She sighed, still inside a broken breath. "Safe's really no fun at all, is it?"

He shook his head.

"I-I'm gonna miss you," she vowed as she took hold of his scarf and let it slide through her fingers. "Long silly scarf and all."

"Do you want it?" he offered gently as he used the very end of it to wipe her tears from her cheek. "I have plenty more."

"But not like this," she answered him quietly. "Not one handcrafted by Madame Nostradamus, anyway."

"Well that is very true."

"And anyway," she said with a smile. "I'm sure it's tucked away in his TARDIS, yeah? I'll find it and have a snuggle with it once in a while."

He looped the length of it over her arms and shoulders to tug her in toward him. "Then I'll make sure that I put it somewhere special – with something special – just for you to find it."

"Ooh," Gallifrey piped up excitedly. "And leave clues. A treasure map!" He looked excitedly toward his mother. "Imagine how fun that'd be, yeah? You and me going on a treasure hunt in the TARDIS. Oh, and the sneaky old girl, she could put obstacles and tricks and twists and turns in our way." He bounced on his toes. "But you and me, mum. Oh we're clever, so very clever. We use our absolute brilliance to solve all her – I mean Aunty TARDIS' – little tricks and booby traps." His bounce turned into a series of jumps as he pleaded with his father. "Oh pleasepleaseplease Dad. Set me up a game? The TARDIS is so big and there are so many really cool ways you could have me on a treasure hunt for days, weeks, even months!" He stopped bouncing and stood still a moment as his wide eyes dropped to glare an almost manic look to the Doctor's waist as he considered it. "Hold on. If I'm asking for Dad – this dad – to do it for me, and he does…" His head shot up and a grin widened on his face to match the flare of thrill in his eyes. "Which means it's already set up. There's a treasure hunt all ready to go in the TARDIS!"

Rose peeped as Gallifrey began to tug on her sleeve. "Gal!"

"Mum," he whined. "Come on. Come with. Let's go on the hunt. It's gonna be so good. I mean, if my dad came up with it, then it's going to be the hunt of the millennium."

Rose looked up to the Doctor with apology in her eyes. "You do realize that this means…"

"I have very little choice in the matter," he finished with a smile. "Not to forget that I also have very high expectations to meet – a most difficult feat when trying to impress such a brilliant youngster."

"Oh, you could just leave a note with a message sending him directly to the prize and he'd be impressed," Rose ventured with a smile as she reached out to scruff at Gallifrey's head.

The youngster smiled a goofy grin at her affection and let her scratch his head for a couple of seconds. Then, without warning, he pushed his head free of her touch and folded his arms across his chest. The look he gave the Doctor was one of challenge. "Don't do what _she_ said.." he poked his thumb toward his mother. He peeped when Romana flicked her fingers on the shell of his ear. He narrowed his eyes at her and kept his little frown of annoyance as he slid his eyes back to his father. "What I meant to say was…" Another snap of a glare toward Romana in warning, and then he looked back to his dad with a smile. "Is that as a Time Lord training a Time Tot, your challenge should be intriguing and, well, challenging. I mean it's called a _challenge_ for a reason, yeah? A challenging challenge."

"That describes you to a tee, Gallifrey," Romana drolled.

"You can drop the false pretenses, my precious Romanadvoratrelundar," Gallifrey cooed. "I know those two thumpers inside your chest beat solely for my benefit."

"And not because I actually need a working vascular system in order to survive or anything like that," she answered back sarcastically.

"Our love will sustain us both."

Romana rolled her eyes, but she smiled. "Oh, Gallifrey. _Really_."

"I can request an official betrothal, you know," he threatened with a cheeky smile and a waggle in his brow. "Lock you in and make sure that you're all mine." He then lightly slouched off to one side and tapped at his lip in a rather thoughtful manner. "Of course we have to wait a few decades or so until I'm officially of age to make it happen. That's a long time to keep you faithful until then. But if you're travelling with Dad, then he can keep an eye on you and make sure you don't get taken in by another Time Lord with nefarious ideas toward you."

Romana squeaked uncomfortably. The Doctor sucked in a breath. Rose merely chuckled.

It was Martha, however, who dove in for the save. She clucked her tongue on the roof of her mouth and let out a disappointed sigh. "So. You were just toying with _my_ heart, then, were you, Gal?"

Gallifrey gave a series of rapid blinks and spluttered just slightly. "Hold on. _What_?"

Martha covered her mouth in her hands and gave a rather convincing performance of a heartbroken woman. "It's just…" She inhaled a gulp and let her eyes water as she swayed helplessly in place against her despair. "I thought that you. That you and I. That we."

Gallifrey was immediately horrified at her heartbreak. "No no. Martha. No no nonono. Don't cry. Oh, God don't cry…" His body went in to rigid shock as he jumped tightly on his feet in a side to side flick between Time Lady and Human. His eyes were wide with horror and his fingers splayed from hands held defensively up in front of him. "Really Martha. It's not what you…"

"I'm not a Time Lord of Gallifrey," Martha shot back with a convincing sob. "I don't have two hearts like you do. I have one, only one, and when you break it like this." She stopped and let out a dramatic wail as she clutched her fist into her chest and contracted into it. "Time Lords!"

Gallifrey's face lengthened in shock as Martha shot a look up to his mother, blinked, and then turned and ran toward the TARDIS. His breath escaped him in a peep to watch her barrel past his pinstriped father with enough force to have him spin away from her.

Rose let out a sigh and shook her head. "Oh, Gal. How could you do that to her? Martha is such a nice lady."

"Agreed," the Doctor said with a nod and a lick at his lip to try and stop a smile from forming. It didn't help that Romana was unsuccessfully trying to fight off a chuckle beside him. "It goes against the very grain of our society to have a Lord upset a Lady in that manner."

Romana made a sound of disagreement beside him, but quickly hid it behind a sniff.

Breathing in rapid pants, Gallifrey looked up desperately to his parents. "What do I do?" he queried urgently. "How? How do I fix this?"

The Doctor's eyes were wide and his mouth slightly gaped as he shook his head slowly. "Well…"

Rose leaned down to look her child in the eye. "I really don't think your dad's the best person to ask about affairs of the hearts, Gal."

"Oh come now," the Doctor challenged with a light whine. "I like to think that I am very well versed in love and all of her challenges, thank you."

Gallifrey grabbed at the lapels of the Doctor's jacket. "Tell me what to do, Dad. Tell me how to fix this!"

"Talk to her," the Doctor answered gently. "Assure her of your affections."

He kept hold of his father's jacket and bounced on his toes. "But I'm just a little boy, Dad. I'm not ready to have girl problems. Not yet anyway."

"Then you'll just have to explain that to her, won't you, young Lord?"

Gallifrey kept his hands fisted around the fabric of his father's jacket, but slouched back with a defeated moan. "I'm too young for this. Why me-e-e-e?"

"Then perhaps you should stop flirting with every pretty lady you see, Gal." A rustle of heavy fabric at his side, and Gallifrey looked to his side to see that his pinstriped father had joined the small group. The Doctor's hands were fisted deep inside his pockets and he walked with a much more cautious gait than was normal for him.

"Stop flirting?" Gallifrey queried flatly.

Rose let up a sharp laugh. "Oh that's rich coming from you, Mr. flirty smile and smooth moves." She looked him up and down. "The Time Lord version of Captain Jack Harkness, you are."

Ten scoffed and then coughed. "Oh I hardly think I can be put in the same category as Jack Harkness." He snorted with an expression of disgust on his face. "Nothing like him. Well. I may on occasion call upon techniques developed over my many centuries of travel across space and time…."

"By that, you mean that you flirt your way through the universe," Rose muttered. "No matter the species."

"I'm _selective_ , thank you."

"Well then," Four huffed with a furrow in his brow. "This is what I regenerate into then, a man who calls upon his flirtatious wiles in order to get the job done?"

"Saving the universe one wink at a time," Rose answered with a wink of her own and a click of her tongue. "Am I right, Doctor?"

Ten rubbed at the back of his neck and kept the angle of his head low to at least look a little sheepish. "You use what works, yeah."

Four poked his finger sharply into Ten's forehead. "You use your brains, you insolent fool," he shot in hotly. "Catering to the sexual nature of any species in order to _get the job_ done is abhorrent behaviour and definitely goes against any principals I've held onto in seven centuries of existence."

"Rose really is making more of it than it actually is," Ten ventured with a shrug. "I do tend to use my absolute brilliance more often than not – as I always have."

Rose sneezed in such a way that it did seem as though she uttered a pair of syllables that expressed her disagreement to the comment. She wiped at her nose in a rather unconvincing manner at a sharp look from Ten.

"Be that as it may," Four muttered as he slid his arms around Rose's waist to draw her close. His voice softened when he looked down at her. "Are you sure that you don't want to just throw it all into the vortex and return to Gallifrey with me? I'll settle down for you. Or we can travel the universe, all of space and time…"

"You can't offer her any more than I am," Ten countered firmly.

Four flicked his eyes toward his older self. "I can offer her my absolute and unwavering devotion."

"I don't have to _offer_ it. She's already got it."

Four kept his eyes locked on his older self, but continued to speak to Rose. "I'll destroy and recreate my own personal timeline for you, my precious girl."

"Well that's just not fair of you, now, is it?" Ten groused.

Rose rolled up onto her toes to press her mouth lightly against Four's. She was slow to pull away from him to speak and remained high on her toes in front of him. "We both know this is where _we_ end, Doctor."

He flexed his hands to pull yet closer to him. He nuzzled his nose against hers. "We don't _end_ , here, my dear. Why this _good bye_ represents the journey to our hello, wouldn't you say?"

"How are you holding it together so well?" she asked with a wet inhale through her nose. "I can't be as strong. I'm falling apart here in your arms…"

"Believe me, Rose," He answered into her hair as he dropped his mouth atop her head. "I am indeed _falling apart_ as much as you are."

"You're hiding it very well then."

The wet blink in his eyes that spilled free his tears as he looked across her head toward his tenth self proved otherwise. His breath shuddered out of his chest as he addressed the older Doctor from across Rose Tyler's head. "Take care of them, Doctor."

Ten pressed his lips into a tin line as he nodded his head sharply. "I will."

"Vow to me that you will forever protect the two of them." He exhaled and then drew in a deep breath. "I'm not leaving until you swear an oath…"

"I will forfeit every remaining regeneration and incarnation if I ever do anything that hurts either of them," he vowed fiercely.

Rose wriggled free of Four's hold and wiped at her eyes with her sleeves. "Deliberately," she added.

Ten and Four both gave her a curious look, but it was Ten who asked the question they both had in mind. "Pardon me?"

"If you _deliberately_ do anything that hurts us," she amended. She then shrugged and offered him a weak smile. "Sometimes, you know. Sometimes it just happens."

"Not any more," Ten declared darkly. "Never again."

The TARDIS whined a whirr of warning that had Romana gently remind the Doctor that it was time to go. He initially ignored her reminder, but found himself nodding slowly when she put her hand on his arm and spoke a gentle call of his name.

"Thank you, Romana. Just one last moment. Please." He held his hand out toward young Gallifrey and hooked his other arm around Rose's waist. "Oh I do wish that we could continue the path my heart wishes to take."

"We can't, Doctor." Rose sighed softly as she nestled at his side and called to Gallifrey with an outstretched arm and wriggling fingers. "But we're here and waiting for you – so don't forget us."

He took a moment to memorise the feeling of his wife and child in his arms, and then let out a solemn breath. "My precious girl. The two of you will be most difficult to forget."

"You're supposed to say that you don't _want_ to forget us, Doctor?"

He chuckled into her hair. "Then it's a very good thing that I didn't bring up my eidetic memory, isn't it?"

He lifted Rose's chin with the crook of his finger and pressed his lips to hers in a lingering, but gentle touch. He held her in place a moment longer. "My hearts are forever yours," he whispered softly. "And don't _you_ ever forget _that._ "

"I love you too, Doctor," she replied with a kiss. "Forever. No matter what incarnation you are."

He ran his thumb along her jaw and then looked down at young Gallifrey snuggled against his hip. "And you, my boy. Take care of your mother. Be good. Be clever. Make me proud."

"You already are," he shot back with a cheeky grin.

"That I am, Gal." He petted his head gently. "My son who is in my hearts."

"Love you too, Dad."

Ten cleared his throat against his fist as he waited impatiently for Rose to find herself in his arms rather than the younger Doctor. He lifted his eyes to the man in question. "Eight hundred and fourty three," he said with a smile.

Four smiled at that. "And it is your oath that I will always be given your consent?"

"With TARDIS as my witness…" He looked to the machine with a smile. "Well. She wouldn't let me say no even if I wanted to, would she?" He opened his arms to receive his wife and child. "Please?"

Four nodded quickly, and after kissing both Rose and Gallifrey on the tops of their heads reluctantly stepped back. With his arms now empty, he felt the weight of the loss of his family and the deep set pain that came with that loss. He forced a smile as he thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and stepped a backward gait toward his TARDIS.

"Rose Tyler, Gallifrey. I'll see you both _very_ soon." He winked. "Remember this is not a goodbye… No." He lowered his head in thought and looked back up as he pressed his hand into the TARDIS door to push it open. "It's not a good bye. It's … oh. It's really…"

"See you later," Rose called with a smile. "We'll see you later, Doctor."

"Indeed," he replied with a wide grin. "See you later."

Rose watched tearfully as the Doctor disappeared behind the doors of the TARDIS. Her heart felt like it fell into her belly as the first thunder of TARDIS dematerialisation cracked across the grass.

"Not if I see you first," she whispered to the disappearing machine.

She was aware of the doctor sliding his hand into hers and traced her thumb over his hand to let him know she appreciated his gesture. But she kept her eyes on the vacant space where the TARDIS had been

"If it helps you to know," the Doctor said gently. "It's only a couple of months until he sees you again. In _his_ timeline anyway."

"He'll be alright, yeah, Doctor?"

The Doctor stepped closer toward her. His voice was low and quiet when he answered her. "He's always alright."

Those words made her spin sharply and immediately launch herself against him. Her collision against his chest so violent that he had to stagger back to maintain his balance. "Don't say that, Doctor. You're _not_ always alright."

"When you're here," he breezed with a smile. "I am." His smile shifted to a grin. "With you. I'm _always_ always alright."

"Oh shut up," she huffed with a laugh as she dropped her head onto his shoulder and walked her body up against his. "You have the worst and most corny pickup lines ever. You know that?"

"Well," he offered with a chuckle. "It's better than _you need a Doctor_ …"

She rolled her eyes to the sky and let out a slight sigh. "Well no. Not really." She kept her eyes to the sky and slouched a little against him. "You see. When you delivered that line, oh, in your absolutely gorgeous ninth incarnation, it was followed by a kiss." She lowered her eyes to his and pursed her lips a little. "This latest line of yours didn't come with that, so it runs a slow second."

He hummed as he slid both arms around her waist and tightened their hold to snap her close to him. "Well. If you'd let me finish before admonishing my attempt to be all smooth and sexy for you…"

"That wasn't sexy. That was at least a solar system away from sexy."

He huffed a hair pf laughs against her lips. "Oh. Shut up."

The gasp that preceded her response was immediately inhaled by the Doctor as he quickly claimed her mouth with his. She gave only a slight playful protest before melting into both the kiss and his firm embrace, and it was at the deep sound of pleasure seated in the back of his throat that she opened herself to him with a full flaring of their bond to let him fill her completely.

The pleasurable rumble in the back of his throat tilted and shifted into a possessive growl that tore the Doctor's mouth from hers. He huffed against her lips with a heavy pant as he stooped lightly to drop an arm below her knee to sweep her up into his arms.

Rose peeped at his sudden movements, but settled against him and offered him her own hooded stare. "Eager to be somewhere, _Doctor_?"

"TARDIS. Now," he commanded as he crushed her against his chest. "If the old girl hasn't put our bedroom immediately beyond the console room door…"

There was a little cheer from the grasses beside them that was as effective a bucket of cold water as a literal bucket of Ice water would be.

"Whoo whoo," Gallifrey called out. He punched his little fist in the air. "So. Does this mean I'm finally going to be getting a sister?"

~~oooOOOooo~~

Three months later….

The TARDIS door swung open with enough force to snap hard against the edge of the doorway. From just beyond her doors there was the sound of a sitar being plucked in a slow and deliberate manner. This music was accompanied by off-key singing and the sweet scent of burning incense.

Gallifrey crossed into the TARDIS before the other members of the boarding party. He strode in with a sway in his gait and a last smile on his face, and paused just shy of the bottom of the ramp and ran his hands down the lapels of the fluffy faux fur vest that he wore over the top of his crimson tunic . "Well don't you look outta sight you stellar looking little bit of dynamite?"

"What have I told you about smooth talking the ladies," the Doctor admonished the young lad as he entered the TARDIS behind him. "I think you owe your Auntie just a little more respect than that, don't you?"

He looked first at his dad and then back at the console through the purple roundel lenses of his sunglasses to hold up his hands in the universal symbol of peace. "Peace out, man. Like, chill, dude." He bobbed his head and smirked as though part of a commune of hippies buried inside a cloak of white smoke. "We're all just friends here, chillin and being groovy."

The Doctor let out the smallest of chuckles and shook his head as he took a quick analysis of the TARDIS console. "I think we're getting out of the 60's just in time."

Gallifrey straightened up and slouched his shoulders as he let out a moan. "Oh come on, Dad. You have to admit that of all the decades to get stuck in, the 1960's was a pretty good one." He preened his fur vest. "And the clothing! Just brilliant."

Martha snorted as she strode past him with a shake in her head. Her lip curled as she fought to tug down the impossible short micro mini dress and walk with her clunky knee-high boots. "For you, maybe."

Rose followed Martha and closed the doors behind her. She winked to her husband to let him know he was good to get them out of the 60's and up into the vortex for a while. She ran her hand over her hair, which had been lacquered stiff with hairspray and let out a long sigh to contemplate getting a comb through it without crying.

"Please, Doctor. Get me out of this decade and to a place and time where hairspray is no longer a prerequisite and skirt hems actually sit lower than the rise of your butt."

"Oh," he purred with a laugh as he raked his eyes up and down her outfit. "But you look amazing."

Gallifrey peeped just slightly. "Yeah. But from this angle, mum. You know. Kiddie-sized shortness, me." He covered his eyes with his forearm. "I can see your knickers."

Rose dipped down as she moved to walk past him. "Then stop looking."

"Really trying not to."

"Well then look at Martha's."

Martha gasped. "Oh. Don't you involve me in that!" She darted around the console to move to the doorway that led to the bedrooms. "I'm going to put on some jeans and get rid of head bands and cat-eye liner."

The Doctor looked up after her. "Take your time, Martha," he called. "I'm just going to set us down in Cardiff for a bit of refuelling."

Martha's head popped around the doorway. "So not in the vortex, then?"

He shook his head. "No. We're setting on the ground for a few hours. Just a recharge."

"A pit stop, then?"

He nodded. "Yep. That's it. Just a pit stop."

A sharp laugh carried across the console room as Martha headed toward her room. "Man the battle stations. A pit stop is the universal invitation for the end of the universe."

The Doctor's brows were high and he let out the smallest of huffs. "Do you ever get the feeling that Martha Jones doesn't quite trust my flying?"

Rose let out a chuckle and stroked at his arm. "My Doctor, _none_ of us trust your flying."

His expression fell to one of hurt. "Oh. Really?"

"But that's what makes it all fun." She looked to Gallifrey. "Isn't that right, Gal?"

Gallifrey shrugged. "Well. My first flight with Dad – this Dad – ended us up in a place that had freaky stone angels that transported us back in time and stranded us in 1969 for almost three months without Aunty TARDIS, which then resulted in three months of running around playing detective and time agent while listening to really bad music and no technology advanced enough to keep me and dad occupied…"

"There's only so much you can do with 1960's Earth household appliances," the Doctor admitted with a shrug.

"Anyway," Gallifrey sang. He shrugged. "Turned out alright, didn't it?"

The Doctor gave him an earnest look. "But you're having fun, yeah?"

The youngster beamed. "Course I am. Can't wait to see what level of trouble you'll get us into next!"

"Trouble isn't actually my intention," the Doctor said with a sigh. He quickly shook out that melancholy and grinned. "And to prove it. Once we refuel in Cardiff, I'll take you and your mum and Martha to the best place in the universe with sun and sand and playgrounds for little time tots as well as these amazing milkshakes that they make with these tiny little berries that grow out of rocks. Rocks, Gal!"

"Are these berries crunchy like rocks, too?"

"Oh my little flubble. If the varmonians didn't prepare them in the manner that they do, then you'd most definitely break a tooth or two if you tried to eat them." He frowned and looked up at the ceiling. "I did that once, oh, back in my fifth. Grabbed a handful of berries when a vendor wasn't looking. Shoved the lot of them in my mouth." He sucked in air through his teeth. "Yeah. I wasn't quite expecting a mouth full of tiny round stone balls in between my teeth."

Rose stretched her arms above her head and sighed a jaw-cracking yawn. "Break any teeth?" she queried on the exhale of her yawn.

The Doctor lightly touched at her hip. "How're you feeling?"

Rose leaned against the console. "I asked you first."

"No," he answered back quickly. "Time Lord teeth. They're tough. Unbreakable, really." HE grinned a toothy smile as though to show her. "Hardy things Tim eLord Teeth. No dentist visits. No need to brush them, really…" He yipped as Rose's hand shot up to cover his mouth.

"Shhh!"

"What're you doing?" he queried with a voice muffled by her hand.

"Don't' say stuff like that. I'm havin' a hard enough time getting our boy to do things like brush his teeth and take a shower every day." She shot a look to Gallifrey who was thankfully distracted by something that had him looped over the crotch of a coral beam. "If you go tellin' him stuff like he doesn't need to brush his teeth then I'll never get that boy to keep himself clean."

He pulled her hand from his mouth and kissed at her knuckles. "Sorry, Rose. Won't bring it up again" He reached down to stroke at her hip. "Now. You answer my question. How're you feeling?"

Rose nodded and shielded another yawn with the back of her hand. "I'm good."

"But tired," he added.

She hummed in agreement. "Yeah. I'm completely beat."

"Yep. I expect you are." He looked down to her abdomen and gave the slightest of smiles as he brushed his knuckles across it and felt the slightest tingle of a presence under his touch. "Maybe you should go take a long bath?" He frowned. "No. You're completely drained. Bad Idea." He pursed his lips. "Go take a nap. I'll set the TARDIS down and come join you when I can."

"I'm not going to argue with _that_ suggestion." She kissed his cheek and looked toward her child. "Gal. I'm going for a bit of a kip. Do you need to nap as well?"

"No taa. Sleep is for tortoises," Gallifrey shot back in a voice that sounded quite disgusted by the thought.

"For _what_?"

Gallifrey straightened up out of his lean over the strut and looked to his mother with wide and guilty eyes. "What I actually meant to say, mum. And might I just say that you are looking absolutely radiant…"

"Get on with it," Rose challenged him with a tight fold of her arms across her chest and a tap of her foot on the grating at her feet. "Finish your backpedal."

Gallifrey smiled and shook his head as he walked briskly toward his mother. "I love you mum."

Rose sighed and let her son loop his arms around her waist. The little terror knew how to melt her heart to get himself out of trouble. She let her arms fall gently on her shoulders. "Love you too, Kiddo."

"You should go," the Doctor urged gently. "Get some rest while you can." His eyes fell to her belly. "I remember how you were with Gallifrey, and if she's the same way, then you're in for a sleepless few weeks."

Rose nodded and yawned against the back of her hand. "Good point. Come join me when you can, yeah?"

"Promise."

He watched her leave the console room and then turned his attention to the levers and dials and buttons flashing in request for attention. He noted the grin on Gallifrey's face out of the corner of his eye and tried hard to suppress his smile.

"Dad?"

"Mmhmmm?"

"Am I finally getting a sister?"

The Doctor appeared distracted to the question as he focused on the monitor as the TARDIS navigated her way through the vortex toward Cardiff. "Hmmm? What was that, Gal?"

"Don't pretend you didn't hear me, Dad."

The Doctor cupped his ear. "What was that, Gal?" he half yelled as he pointed to the whining and wheezing time rotor in front of him. "Kinda loud in here when the old girl's in flight. And it's been a while for her, got a few things that need oiling no doubt."

"Dad," Gallifrey growled as the TARDIS quietened and then settled in her landing. "Stop playing about. Is mum pregnant? Am I having a sister?"

Martha's voice piped into the conversation as she reentered the console room in her favourite pair of jeans and comfy jacket. "Did I hear that right? Are you and Rose expecting another little time tot?"

The Doctor had ceased listening to either of them as he watched the monitor and the image of a man with a familiar silhouette running toward the TARDIS. His eyes were wide and his jaw set as he suddenly lunged across the console and flicked at the materialisation lever. "Looks like the old girl has enough energy in her after all. No need to a break in Cardiff. Off to Vamonio we go. Hold on you two. Could be a bumpy ride."

Bumpy didn't quite accurately describe the pitching and lurching motions of the TARDIS as she threw herself into the vortex and fought against the explosive energies that surrounded her as she fought against any command that the Doctor input into her system. With a sudden crash and spray of sparks, all three of them were thrown to the grating.

They tried to move, but the forces of the ship's sudden and violent acceleration prevented any of them from rising up off the floor.

"What's going on, Doctor?" Martha questioned through gritted teeth. "What's happening?"

The Doctor was able to pull himself up enough to look at the monitor. He frowned at what he saw. "We're accelerating into the furture. Faster than she's ever gone before."

Gallifrey clutched hard at the Doctor's trouser leg and tugged himself up enough to see the readout on the monitor. "The year one billion," he grit out. "Five Billion. Five Trillion. Fifty trillion."

The Doctor shook his head. "What? The year one hundred trillion? That's impossible!"

"Why," Martha huffed out. "What's so impossible about that?"

"It's the end of the universe," the Doctor answered her. "We're going to the end of the universe!"

"That's bad?"

"I don't know," the Doctor admitted. "Just hold on. I don't know how rough this landing's going to be." He reached out to hang on to Gallifrey. "I got you, Gal. Hang on, okay?"

With a deafening roar and whoosh of releasing energies, the TARDIS found her landing place and thudded heavily to the ground. Silence then filled the room, with the exception of the heaving breaths of the three console room occupants.

Martha spoke up first. "We've landed, yeah?"

The Doctor rapidly nodded his head. "Yeah." He looked down at Gallifrey pressed against his chest inside the protective circle of his arms. "You okay, Flubble?"

Gallifrey nodded slowly and locked his widened eyes on the doors of the TARDIS. "What do you think is out there?"

The Doctor looked toward the door himself. "I don't know."

Martha had to chuckle. "The rarest words ever spoken by the Time Lord Doctor, and you've said it twice in thirty seconds."

"Not even the Time Lords came this far, Martha," he answered carefully. "So we should probably leave. We should really, really … go."

Gallifrey carefully peeled himself from his father's arms and cautiously headed to the door. "You think we should really just reset the cords and get out of here, right, Dad?"

"Oh, abslolutely, Gal. Quite possibly too dangerous for any of us to head out there. I mean…" he slipped his hands into his trouser pockets and strode to the doorway. "I mean, there could be anything beyond those doors, couldn't there?"

"Best to just leave, yeah?"

Martha let out a groan and pulled on the TARDIS doors. "Well the two of you can stand there all day like a couple of scared little mice. I'm heading out." She stepped through the doorway, and then paused with a look of challenge to the two Time Lords. "Well? Coming?"

The Doctor and Gallifrey gave each other a wary look, but it was wariness that was quickly replace with grins of thrill. It was the Doctor's smile that broke the widest as he winked at his son.

"Race you!"


End file.
